FW: Re: Changes in the itstagset document (comments CL 1)

Hello everyone,

Sorry, I used the wrong list initially.

Best regards,
Christian

-----Original Message-----
From: Lieske, Christian 
Sent: Donnerstag, 10. November 2005 13:20
To: 'member-i18n-its@w3.org'
Subject: Re: Changes in the itstagset document (comments CL 1)

Dear all,

I finally got around looking at the version of the document which is
available for comments (I copied the text on the start of my working
day).
It's fascinating to see how far we have gotten. Special thanks to Felix
for all the hard work he already put into this.

In order to share my comments as quickly as possible (ie. to allow as
much time as possible for your feedback to my comments) I decided to
sent my comments section-wise. Please find my comments for the preamble,
and section 1.

The methodology I used for commenting is the following:

1. quote text from original document
2. introduce general comment by [CL>] 
3. possibly suggest specific modification, addition, rephrasing
(bracketed by [CLXXXSuggestionStart>] and [CLXXXSuggestionEnd>]

Best regards,
Christian

Christian Lieske
MultiLingual Technology (MLT)
Globalization Services (SLS)
SAP AG
---

Abstract
This document defines data categories and their implementation as a set
of elements and attributes called Internationalization and Localization
Tag Set (ITS). ITS is used with new and existing schemas to support the
internationalization and localization of schemas and documents. The
implementation of ITS is provided for three schema languages: XML DTDs,
XML Schema and RELAX NG. In addition, implementations as fixed
modularizations of various existing vocabularies (e.g. XHTML, DocBook,
Open Document schema) are provided.

[CL>]  This may not capture the discussion related to name and scope  we
had (see e.g. during
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-i18n-its/2005OctDec/0086). I
wonder if the following suggestion for rephrasing would improve the
current text. Of course, the suggested change would require an adpation
of the corresponding paragraph below 'Status' and 'Introduction'.
Furthermore, using XLIM rather than ITS as acronym would require updates
to other parts of the document. 
[CLRephraseSuggestionStart>]  
This document defines the XML Localization and Internationalization
Markup Language (XLIM), a language which supports the
internationalization and localization of XML schemas and XML instances.
In addition to background information, and usage scenarios, this
document provides three formal definitions of XLIM: as XML DTD, XML
Schema and RELAX NG. In addition, the document exemplifies how XLIM can
be used with existing vocabularies (e.g. XHTML, DocBook, Open Document
schema).
[CLRephraseSuggestionEnd>]  

Send your comments to www-i18n-comments@w3.org. Use "Comment on its WD"
in the subject line of your email. The archives for this list are
publicly available.

[CL>]  Is this the correct list?

1 Introduction
1.1 Purpose of this Specification

[CL>]  I suggest to drop the sub-heading (to condense the table of
contents and make the document more compact in general).

Requirements for the internationalization and localization of markup are
formulated in [ITS REQ]. This specification responds to only a part of
these requirements. Other requirements will be described in the future
in a document on techniques for schema internationalization and
localizability.

[CL>]  I guess 'addressed' would be more adequate than 'described'.
Furthermore, we should talk about schemata and instances here as well.

[CLRephraseSuggestionStart>]  
Requirements for the internationalization and localization of markup are
formulated in [ITS REQ]. This specification responds to only a part of
these requirements. Other requirements will be addressed in a future
document on techniques for internationalization and localization of XML
schemas and XML instances.
[CLRephraseSuggestionEnd>]  

1.2 Background: Motivation for IST

[CL>]  I suggest to change the sub-heading to 'Goals and Origin'. In
order to address 'Origin' I suggest the following paragraph at the end
of the section

[CLAddtionSuggestionStart>] 
The design of XLIM has been informed by knowledge of established
standards related to internationalization and localization such as XLIFF
[XLIFF] and TMX [TMX]. Activities in the realm of XLIM have a history of
several years (see http://people.w3.org/rishida/localizable-dtds/).
[CLAdditionSuggestionEnd>]  

1.3 Out of Scope
The data categories and their implementation as a schema does not
address document-external mechanisms or data formats for describing
localization-relevant information over and above what is appropriate for
inclusion in the format itself. Such mechanisms and data formats, also
sometimes called XML Localization Properties, are out of the scope of
this document. However, this document specifies a methodology how
localization properties and information about internationalization and
localization can be applied to various places in schemas and instance
documents. See Section 3: Scope of ITS information.

[CL>]  I suggest to drop the sub-heading (to condense the table of
contents and make the document more compact in general). Furthermore,
since it may help to get the message related to localization properties
better accross, I suggest the following:

[CLRephraseSuggestionStart>]  
Although XLIM specifies concepts for attaching information which
supports internationalization and localization to various places in
schemas and instance documents (see Section 3: Scope of ITS
information), XLIM does not intend to provide a set of configuration
settings which localization tools may use to process files in a given
format. A generic format for these configuration settings (often termed
'localization properties'), however, may be based on the concepts of
XLIM.
[CLRephraseSuggestionEnd>]  

1.4 Application Scenarios
Three application scenarios are described for this specification
(section 2 in [ITS REQ]):

content authoring

terminology creation and translation

software development

The diversity of these scenarios leads to a great variety on possible
implementations of the ITS data categories.

[CL>]  I suggest to reuse wording from the requirements document 'Usage
Scenarios' rather than 'Application Scenarios'. Furthermore, I propose
to move information on scope into a separate section in order to
underline the importance of this notion.

[CLRephraseSuggestionStart>]  
1.2 Usage Scenarios

Information which supports internationalization and localization with
respect to XML schemas and XML instances may be used in many ways.
Example usages (see section 2 in [ITS REQ]) are:

content authoring

terminology creation and translation

software development

The diversity of these usages leads to a great variety of requirements
and possible formalization of an XML language supports information
related to internationalization and localization. The concepts described
in this document are meant to provide general answers to these sometimes
conflicting requirements.
[CLRephraseSuggestionEnd>]  

[CL>]  I suggest to introduce a sub-heading to 'Important Design
Decisions' which talks about scoping, extension, and technologogical
viability.

[CLAddtionAndRephraseSuggestionStart>] 
1.3 Important Design Decisions

Scoping:

Content authors need a simple way to express whether the content of an
element or attribute should be translated or not, e.g. an attribute
translate. On the other hand, for translations of large document sets
based on the same schema, a specification of defaults for
translatability and exceptions from the defaults is of importance (e.g.
"all p" elements should be translated, but not p elements inside of an
index element). This specification responds to these conflicting
requirements by introducing a methodology for specifying  scoping
information. The methodology also provides a means for attaching
information related to attributes (a task for which no standard means
exists yet).

Extension:

It may be useful or necessary to extend the set of information available
for internationalization or localization purposes beyond what is
provided by XLIM. This specification does not define a general extension
mechanism, since ordinary XML mechanims (e.g. XML Namespaces [XML
Names]) may be used.

Technological Viability:
In order to foster a quick adapdation of XLIM, XLIM was developed with
two important criteria in mind:
- No dependence on technologies which are yet to be developed (e.g.
NVDL)
- Fit with existing work in the W3C Architecture domain (e.g. use of
XPath for scoping)
[CLAdditionAndRephraseSuggestionEnd>]

Received on Thursday, 10 November 2005 14:31:55 UTC