Re: [Ltru] Consensus call: extlang

Peter Constable 2008-05-29 18.53:

>> From: ltru-bounces@ietf.org [mailto:ltru-bounces@ietf.org] On
>> Behalf Of Leif Halvard Silli
> 
> 
>> If the focus is identification, then the fallback and
>> filtering doesn't matter (or must be defined subsequently).
> 
> Sorry, but this is not a sensible approach to coding.

   [...]

Note the "if". And if we try to solve too many issues at once, 
then perhaps we won't solve any thing at all.

> "cmn" requires that a process have a separate business
> knowledge relating Mandarin and "Chinese", but "zh-cmn" embeds
> that knowledge into the tag itself. Since both are the same in
> terms of their identificational value, the question to be asked
> is which of these is more useful for processing. [...]

Who will be more useful - ok. But also: Who will lead to most 
processing/most tagging.

I think that 'cmn' will be perceived as 'oh, now they have decided 
something entirely new'.  We used 'zh' in all these yeaers, and 
now - why 'yue'?

>> Extlang makes identifying/finding *all* Chinese languages
>> simple,
> 
> Note that you have already introduced processing.

I know.

>> for those that need to do find them all. It would only
>> require that you ask for 'zh'. Thus with extlang one could
>> start tagging resources spesificly *immediatly*, because it
>> should be highly compatible with existing application
>> behaviour.
> 
> For applications that use right-truncation matching, but not
> lookup.

It is of course not difficult to per se to add all tags instead of 
just one or two to one's Web browser. But in my experience it is 
difficult to even add more than one. Not to mention how difficult 
it is to get application to ad sensible algoritms so that spesific 
tags does not lead you to loose content.

>> (Btw, this approach strikes me as higly compatible with
>> another popular slogan: Don't break the Web.)
> 
> Well, not all servers use right-truncation matching logic, and
> for those that don't your plan would be breaking the Web. (I'm

It would be interesting to know some Web servers and othe servers 
where it works differently.

> not saying that the no-extlang path doesn't have some of the
> same issues; either way, there are things that would need to be
> done to keep everything working smoothly if we want to
> transition from a "zh"-only past into a future that includes
> "cmn"/"yue"/etc.

But there are no Web browsers today which ask for 'cmn' or 'yue'. 
It is 'zh' they ask for. Hence there is a chance that content 
tagged as 'zh-cmn' will Just Work, today, many places. And 
therefore I view it as a good bit more compatible with existing 
content to go for Extlang.
-- 
leif halvard silli
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