Re: Updated Working Draft "Best Practices for XML Internationalization"

[first, with chair hat on: Mark and others, please try to reduce
 your quoted content.]

At 03:45 07/07/01, Mark Davis wrote:
>The title appears misleading. There are multiple ways to internationalize XML documents. Only a few of the practices are general; the thrust of the document appears to be using ITS to do so, so a more apt title would be
>
>>Best Practices for XML Internationalization
>=>
>Best Practices for XML Internationalization using ITS

The document should definitely be general, not limited to ITS.
So it's not the title that should be changed, but maybe some
of the contents.

Of course, there are several ways to internationalize documents,
and this should be taken into account. However, ITS is a W3C
Recommendation, so using lots of examples from ITS and listing
ITS as the first choice, etc., seem to be appropriate.


>> Include <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang in your DTD or schema to allow to specify the natural language of the content
>=>
>Where necessary, include <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang in your DTD or schema to allow to specify the natural language of the content. 
>
>[why? because an XML document that just has locale-independent information like inventory counts of part numbers doesn't want to have this. Ditto below.]

Agreed, but the wording should be different. "where necessary" doesn't
say anything specific. I'd go for a wording more along the following
lines:

Include <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang in your DTD or schema to allow to specify the natural language of the content for all elements that may contain natual language.

>> Make sure the <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang attribute is available for the root element of your document, and for any element where a change of language may occur.
>
>=>
>If you documents can contain text of different languages, make sure the <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-lang-tag>xml:lang attribute is available for the root element of your document. If it can contain mixed languages, make sure it is available for any element where a change of language may occur. 

The "changed of language" may easily be misunderstood to have the
markup mean 'from now on', rather than 'for this nested element'.


>Same changes for other cases, like #2, #7,...
>
>>Best Practice 19: Use CDATA sections with caution 
>I'd like to see this be:
>=> Best Practice 19: Avoid CDATA sections wherever possible

I'd tend to agree here.

Regards,    Martin.



#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp

Received on Monday, 2 July 2007 00:08:43 UTC