Re: Language label

M.T. Carrasco Benitez wrote:
> > If I was writing a server with the ability to extract language info from
> > the document and put it in the HTTP header, I'd support all three methods:
> > 
> > <HTML LANG=xx>
> > <BODY LANG=xx>
> > <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Language" CONTENT="xx">
> 
> This is precisely what I wanted to avoid.

Why? If the processing goes into servers, it should be robust. Servers
should treat clients as their worst enemies. :)
If some server wants to process HTML files then it should be prepared to
encounter all kinds of garbage and HTML authors ahould also be treated
as enemies.

> > META method is the most general, because it can have CONTENT="en, de", for
> > example.
> 
> The language label is for monolingual documents: only *one* language must
> be indicated.

Must? RFC 2068 in section 14.13 says

   Content-Language  = "Content-Language" ":" 1#language-tag

Suppose I want to put some translated poems on the web. I'd like to
include original also and I think both should be viewed side by side.
Frames are out of the question because I don't want independent scrolling.
I'd put them on one page, probably in a table. That would be a case for
two language tags.

> > As an author, I'd like lang and charset info outside of the document in
> > the directory name, if possible.
> 
> There must be possible to transport (floppies, attached, etc) a document
> with the lang and charset *inside*.  Having it as a file name extension
> could be consider *inside* (not a very good solution), but a doubt about a
> directory.

I doubt also.

> > I'd be happy to have a directory with only one variant.
> 
> Good, but other scheme should be allow.  I come back to multilingual
> parallel texts later.

Of course, I've only stated my preference. I've forgotten to write why I
strongly dislike language information in the file name. HREFs in the
files would look like "foo.html" and files on file system would look like
"foo.html.xx" where xx is the language tag. Server can make mapping
between the two, but my browser probably can't and I can't jump from
one file to another locally. An awful situation.

-- 
They work 24 hours a day and 256 days a year  --  root@fly.cc.fer.hr

dave@srce.hr
dave@fly.cc.fer.hr

Received on Thursday, 27 February 1997 22:41:08 UTC