Re: what's the language of a document ?

On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, "Martin J. Dürst" wrote:
> On 2009/10/27 19:37, Ian Hickson wrote:
> > On Tue, 27 Oct 2009, Simon Pieters wrote:
> > > This doesn't match what's specced for<meta 
> > > http-equiv=content-language content=foo,bar>.
> > 
> > That's intentional, and is based on data about how people actually use 
> > that pragma.
> 
> There's always a way to justify inconsistent choices (be it browser 
> implementations, 'data' about how people (who?) use some feature (at 
> what point in time?),...). But it would be way better to be consistent.

Sure, but it's even better to be in line with how authors are actually 
using the feature. A few years back, when speccing the Content-Language 
pragma, the data I looked at indicated that most authors don't use the 
pragma in a way consistent with the meaning of the HTTP header. They 
instead use it as a default for setting the document language. There is 
more value, IMHO, in making pages work, than in being consistent with a 
rarely used feature from HTTP, especially given that that feature is of 
dubious benefit as specced anyway.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'