Re: Summary of strings, markup, and language tagging in RDF (resend)

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