Re: For review: Character encodings in HTML and CSS

Hi, my comments are below.
From: Najib Tounsi <ntounsi@gmail.com> 
Date: Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:12:02 +0000

CE Whitehead wrote:
> Hi, I really liked most of Najib's suggestions, with the exception of 
> one or two.
>
> From: Najib Tounsi <ntounsi@gmail.com <mailto:ntounsi@gmail.com>>
> Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 23:45:05 +0000
>
>
>  > 7- § Pros and cons of using the HTTP header for encoding declarations /
> > 
> (http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/tutorial-char-enc/temp#Slide0130)
> > . . .
> > - So should I use this method? (next <p>)
> >"the file may be changed by an intermediary before it reaches the user
> > [...], you may particularly want to consider using the HTTP 
> declaration."
> > May be
> > "the file may be changed by an intermediary before it reaches the user
> > [...], you may particularly want to consider using the HTTP 
> declaration,
> > SINCE IT IS CHANGED ACCORDINGLY."
> Personally Najib, I think that the fact that is it changed is clear 
> from "changed by an intermediary . . ." but suit yourself.
> > - your following remark:
> > "(Some people would argue that it is rarely appropriate to declare the
> > encoding in the HTTP header if you are going to repeat it in the 
> content
> > of the document. In this case, they are proposing that the HTTP header
> > say nothing about the document encoding. Note that this would usually
> > mean taking action to disable any server defaults.)"
> > may be
> > "(Some people would argue that it is rarely appropriate to declare the
> > encoding in the HTTP header if you are going to repeat it in the 
> content
> > of the document. In this case, they are proposing that the HTTP header
> > say nothing about the document encoding, OR THAT THE DECLARATION INSIDE
> > THE DOCUMENT TAKE PRECEDENCE. AFTER ALL IT IS WHAT THE AUTHOR WANTS.
> > Note that this would usually mean taking action to disable any server
> > defaults.)"
> I like R. I.'s wording in this case!  Sorry Najib but your wording 
> here is a bit confusing;
> I'm not sure we need to know that 'this is what the author wants' 
> after all.

> Hi Catherine,

> Of course my English is very approximate. In fact, I just wanted to 
> express the idea (besides R. I.'s note) that some people may also want 
> that the declaration inside a document take precedence. Is this what  
> the author wants, is my personal opinion.

> Best,
> Najib
Hi, Najib.  I do think I understand what you are saying: if there is no encoding declared in the http header then the encoding declared inside the document will get precedence next.
And I assume that you are trying to say also, that if the author takes the trouble to declare an encoding inside a document, then that is the encoding he/she wants, and probably that is correct (sometimes applications declare encodings inside documents [http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-setting-encoding-in-applications] & I guess the applications generally 'know' what the encoding of a document should be, but we did discuss a case where I could
declare a file as as utf-8 because it contained utf-8 escapes, but otherwise only contained Latin-1 characters, and then could save it as ansi/Latin-1;
in that case I might not be happy with the internal encoding declaration I guess; fortunately notepad does not insert its own declarations into files . . .  only the BOM--& thanks to your telling me about the BOM I figured out what all the funny characters were in my files!  So that's why I want to save files as ansi but declare them as UTF-8, whenever I only have ansi characters plus of course escapes. )

I don't think you have to say, regarding the 'in-document declaration,' that "IT IS WHAT THE AUTHOR WANTS" though because that is sort of understood in this case, in English.

I think Richard Ishida spelled out some precedence rules 
(http://www.w3.org/International/tutorials/tutorial-char-enc/#Slide0400);
thus he does not want to mention precedence again here; perhaps he could link to the section where he spells these out?

Best,

C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar@hotmail.com