FW: [Moderator Action] Comments on FAQ: Apache language negotiation set up

Editorial nit: "...you make it easier to to read..."  Strike one "to".


Under "File naming" it says that if you use the example.en.html style, 
you will need to make links point to "example".  This is actually a Good

Thing, for reasons other than i18n.  See "Cool URIs don't change" at 
http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html, to which this FAQ should 
probably point.


"We recommend that you use ISO language and country codes as defined by 
RFC3066".  Poor wording, the RFC doesn't define ISO codes!  Just say 
"...use language tags as defined by RFC 3066".  BTW, the link at the 
bottom of the page says it links to RFC 1766 (obsoleted by 3066) and 
actually points to a Microsoft page on the BOM!


"Note that users can refer to a specific file by typing in the full file

name,".  It might be good to say that one can also use an incomplete 
name such as "example.fr" to specify language but not format, preserving

the format-independance that "Cool URIs don't change" promotes while 
linking to a specific language version when appropriate.


Unless things have changed fairly recently, the Multiviews option needs 
to be enabled in Apache for automatic content negotiation to take place.

It may or may not be possible to set that option in a .htaccess file, 
depending on settings higher up.


The Default files section seems to imply that there must be a 
server-wide default, which is not necessarily the case.  It might be 
worth pointing out that a server-wide default language is a valid 
option, but that then every page must exist in that language; a 
server-wide default is probably not a good choice for sites where 
content varies by language.

Same section, it is a bit ironic that the Core TF of the i18n WG keeps 
telling other WGs to please use examples other than English/ASCII, and 
here the GEO TF of the same i18n WG uses English as an example default 
language.  Also, the parenthetic statement "(likely to often be the best

choice for a default, given the widespread nature of English)" should be

at least fixed to not mention the *nature* of English, or better removed

altogether.

Regards,

-- 
François

Received on Thursday, 18 December 2003 04:15:02 UTC