- From: Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org>
- Date: Fri, 28 May 2010 07:51:18 +0100
- To: <public-i18n-core@w3.org>, <public-webapps@w3.org>
[Forwarding the relevant part of Addison's email as part of the original thread] > To: art.barstow@nokia.com; ext Richard Ishida > Cc: 'Felix Sasaki'; 'Marcos Caceres'; 'Robin Berjon'; 'Steven Pemberton'; 'Doug > Schepers'; 'Charles McCathieNevile'; 'www-archive' > Subject: RE: [widgets] Re: i18n comments: > > Dear Art, et al, > ... > 4. I personally disagree with Richard's comment #20 [2]. The empty language > tag is related to locale fallback in that it represents the root of the locale > hierarchy, a position you could fill with "i-default", save that that value doesn't > play nicely with BCP 47 fallback. The xml:lang="" is the default content. I don't > agree that this is "unlocalized", which is your description. See my comment #2 > above. ... > Addison > ... > Addison Phillips > Globalization Architect (Lab126) > Chair (W3C I18N, IETF IRI WGs) > > Internationalization is not a feature. > It is an architecture. > > -----Original Message----- > From: public-i18n-core-request@w3.org [mailto:public-i18n-core- > request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Richard Ishida > Sent: 20 May 2010 18:14 > To: public-i18n-core@w3.org; public-webapps@w3.org > Subject: [widgets PC] i18n comment 20 : Misuse of xml:lang for localization > flag > > Comment from the i18n review of: > http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/ > > Comment 20 > At http://www.w3.org/International/reviews/0907-widgets-pc/ > Editorial/substantive: S > Tracked by: RI > > Location in reviewed document: > 7.16.1 [http://dev.w3.org/2006/waf/widgets/#example-of-usage9] > > Comment: > Note: I am marking this as closed straight away, since I believe it was not > spotted early enough to be corrected. I am recording it here, however, in > case it is useful for a future discussion. > > > xml:lang should really only be used to indicate the language of content in an > element. If you need to indicate something else, such as the locale for that > content for localization purposes, you should use a different attribute. See <a > href="http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-when-xmllang">xml:lang > in XML document schemas</a>. Here not only is xml:lang used incorrectly > for that reason, but xml:lang="" is defined to mean that this is the default > locale, whereas the XML spec says that that should mean that the language > of the content of that element is undetermined (see Tagging text with no > language [http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-no-language]). > > > It would have been better to use an attribute such as locale='en', locale='fr', > or locale=''. This would be used alongside xml:lang. The former would > indicate how to process the document, the latter would be useful for things > like spell-checking, voice browsers, etc that need to understand the language > of the text they are processing. > > > This would simplify the code in the example in section 7.16.1. Instead of: > > > <name xml:lang="" dir="ltr"><span xml:lang="en">GPS > Weather!</span></name> > > > you could simply use > > > <name locale="" xml:lang="en" dir="ltr">GPS Weather!</name> > > > > > ============ > Richard Ishida > Internationalization Lead > W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) > > http://www.w3.org/International/ > http://rishida.net/
Received on Friday, 28 May 2010 06:51:53 UTC