I have marked this contribution off-topic, because this list is about LTRU, not XML. I hope we can reduce the flow of data on the list a bit, so that a bit more people (including the chairs :-() have a chance to follow. Regards, Martin. At 23:46 08/05/09, Mark Davis wrote: >This isn't formally a problem with XML, since you can always design a format that bundles together multiple xml:langs as applying to some text, and you also don't have to use xml:lang to mark text: you can use your own attribute, containing a list. But it would be less clumsy if xml:lang took a list, or we had xml:langs that did. It would be less clumsy for those very very rare cases where you really think you need this. It would make things more clumsy for all other cases, the vast majority. xml:lang is very convenient in many cases. It is in particular convenient if you use XML the way it is intended, i.e. for hierarchical structures, with markup where needed (e.g. for language changes), without natural text in attributes,... XML is less appropriate for data that cannot be described hierarchically (there are for example quite a few approaches to encoding parallel texts in XML, none optimal), or where you aren't sure about the structure of the data or the significance of certain pieces. In more concrete terms, we have been talking about cases where e.g. you don't know whether a snippet of text is French or English. Now assume that you have an XML application that allows you to mark up something as an emphasis or as a variable name (HTML <em> and <var>). Assume you have some data where you don't know which to choose. XML doesn't offer you a <em-or-var> tag (unless you create one on your own). The fact that xml:lang accepts only one language therefore seems to be very much in line with much more general (so general that they are rarely even expressed) design principles of XML, and therefore perfectly fine. Regards, Martin. #-#-# Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University #-#-# http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp mailto:duerst at it.aoyama.ac.jp _______________________________________________ Ltru mailing list Ltru at ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ltru
Note Well: Messages sent to this mailing list are the opinions of the senders and do not imply endorsement by the IETF.