>I apologise for the flames, but honestly, I have spent the last 6+
>months trying to get HTML-WG to a point where we have some real
>international support, and I really don't relish the idea of repeating
>the effort here. HTML-WG spent a long, painful, time understanding the
>issues, partly because uninformed people commented authoritively, and
>that required a period of "damage control", shall we say. As such, I
>would like anyone ready to comment on this issue to spend time
>learning about I18N *before* posting.
>
I hope I speak for a majority of the text-minded people on the list when I
say the following:
We don't want to repeat any I18N efforts either.
Many of us have had extensive experience with I18N. I remember what the X
Consortium and OSF had to go through with it. Even those of us who haven't
worked in it do have an appreciation for what a swamp it is. This is
exactly why we don't want to do an amibitious job with text right now. We
hope that the W3 community as a whole will come up with at least a workable
set of solutions; when those are ready we will adopt them.
However, we need text *now*. Something simple, something useful for the
majority of applications in the V1.0 time frame, i.e. this year. Chris's
proposal as modified over the last week fits the bill nicely.
Some things you should keep in mind:
1) This specification is for the *first* version of a language we expect to
grow with use over the new few years, as has HTML.
2) We know the v1.0 baseline is neither perfect nor complete. Over the last
few weeks I myself have found several things I would like to add as node
types, and fields I would like to add to existing nodes. However, wearing
my spec hat I have disciplined myself and kept my own recommendations to a
minimum. If we are to have a hope in hell of getting a v1.0 spec done we
have to take an approach like this.
3) One reason we picked OI was for its extensibility-- we can add things
later. Of course, we know it's tough to take things *out* of a spec once
they're in. For this reason we favor for a simple node like AsciiText which
can be sidestepped over time.
[Speaking for myself now]
The above being said, let me say I appreciate your concerns about text, and
I agree wholeheartedly that the AsciiText proposal will not be viable in the
long term. But I am single-minded about bringing this issue to closure
(focus is one of my more endearing and annoying qualities, ask any of my
friends), and I have grown tired of attempts to pull this issue up into the
ivory towers. There are people like myself who need to spend their time
*working*, not sparring on a mailing list.
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Intervista Software
Internet Visualization
415 648-2749
Tony Parisi
President [email protected]
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