- From: Brian McBride <bwm@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
- Date: 02 Jul 2003 10:30:40 +0100
- To: Martin Duerst <duerst@w3.org>
- Cc: Graham Klyne <gk@ninebynine.org>, Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>, w3c-i18n-ig@w3.org, "Ralph R. Swick" <swick@w3.org>, misha.wolf@reuters.com, Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@w3.org>, rdf core <w3c-rdfcore-wg@w3.org>
On Tue, 2003-07-01 at 23:01, Martin Duerst wrote: [...] > > a) a violation of an i18n design principle that there should be only > >one way to represent text/markup with/without lang tags in RDF's > >abstract syntax. > > > > b) that users will be surprised that xml:lang tags that are in scope > >around a parseType='Literal' do not affect that literal. > > > >I note that in > > > > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-rdfcore-wg/2003Jun/0187.html > > > >Martin suggests that issue b) is "easily the most important one". > > > >Martin: To address issue a) as you would like will require significant > >changes to the RDFCore specs which RDFCore is not persuaded would be > >beneficial at this time. We could spend more time and energy on it, but > >it seems to me that, given your statement of importance we should focus > >our efforts on resolving issue b). > > > >Do you agree? > > Many thanks for your proposal. I definitely agree in the sense that > whatever energy you/we have left should first go into solving b). > For the record, I would like to remind you that issue b) came up > as a change from your side long after last call, so the arguments > about not changing the design after last call don't seem appropriate > for this issue. I agree. Remember, we specifically drew your attention to this change because we felt it was important that i18n review it. > Also, I do not exactly agree with your summary of the situation on a). Noted. However, turning to the higher priority issue b), I suggest we lay out the issue (I've taken a stab) and that we analyse the pro's and con's of the WG's decision. Largely, I suggest we do that with test cases and use cases. To RDFCore I say, Martin and his colleagues on I18N are experts in these matters. I strongly encourage listening their *arguments* with an open mind. Given as an example: <rdf:Description xml:lang="en"> <foo:prop parseType="Literal"> <em>chat</em> </foo:prop> </rdf:Description> <rdf:Description xml:lang="fr"> <foo:prop parseType="Literal"> <em>chat</em> </foo:prop> </rdf:Description> Your contention, I think, is that users familiar with XML will be surprised that these two statements have the same object; that the outer xml:lang does not affect the object of the statements. Martin: is that the sum of your objection? Can you provide better examples that clearly indicate the force of your argument? RDFCore considered a number of options, but the relevant ones were that the object of the statement should either be one of the following xml fragments: <wrapper xml:lang="en"> <em>chat</em> </wrapper> or <em>chat</em> The former carries the enclosing lang tag, the latter does not. The WG preferred the latter, though, as I recall, this was largely an aesthetic judgement. I'm going to make a trawl of the email archives this morning and see if I can lay out the various pro's and con's, but I'd sure be happy if someone beat me to it. Brian
Received on Wednesday, 2 July 2003 05:31:11 UTC