Re: status: EDUML v0.6

[Bruno Vernier <vernier@vc.bc.ca>]

On Tue, Dec 29, 1998 at 10:28:48AM -0800, Duane Morin wrote:
> > <locale>           // internationalization (optional)
> >  <school fr="ecole" es="escuela" eo="lernejo"/>
> ...
> 
> I'm not sure my original comments on this subject made it out, or maybe 
> I just got overruled, but I'll say it again in case.  If  you want to go 
> this way, and assign the languages as attributes, then you lock yourself 
> into a set of languages for good.  If in the above example somebody 
> wanted to add "it" for "Italian", then the DTD would have to be recoded, 
> as well as all the software that reads it.

Thanks Duane:  I now understand what you mean! I see the light :-)
               and I will redo the internationalization with elements not
               attributes. P.S. I never meant to overrule you, I simply
	       assumed attributes and elements were congruous in this case.
	       Thanks for your faith in my ability to eventually get it :-) 
	       
To all: Please note:  These internationalisation elements are optional!  If you see
no need to use them in your programs, then you can ignore them completely :-)

But those of us who will be using the tag names like field names in our
user-friendly query scripts, might appreciate the availability of ready-made
translations.  The way I am seeing it, XML allows everyone to have what they
want without imposing arbitrary constraints on anyone else.

How is this?

 <locale>           // internationalization (optional)
   <word tag="school">
     <fr tag="ecole"/>
     <es tag="escuela"/>
     <eo tag="lernejo"/>
     </word>
   </locale>
	
Bruno	

> More flexible, though perhaps more work as well, would be to create a 
> dictionary something like this:
> 
>    <dictionary>
>     <word lang="en"> <!-- "language the base is coded in" -->
>      <base>name</base>
>      <alternate lang="fr">nom</alternate>
>      <alternate lang="es">nombre</alternate>
>      <alternate lang="eo">nomo</alternate>
>     </word>
>     <word>
>      <base>school</base>
>     </word>
>    ...
>    </dictionary>