Language Maps [was RE: [uf-discuss] Microformats vs XML]

[Tantek Ç elik]

On 5/1/06 3:27 PM, "Karl Dubost" <karl at w3.org> wrote:

> 
> Le 06-05-02 à 03:24, Ryan King a écrit :
>> Internationalization in protocols and formats is a big problem.
>> Much bigger than microformats. Maybe we'll be able to advance
>> things in microformats, even if only a little.
>> I'm curious­ has anyone here had experience with Internationalizing
>> a data format or communication protocol?
> 
> Indeed. The only very simple way I see to handle this is at authoring
> tool level. If we were making a pile on how XML markup languages are
> organized, there will be for layers, with the fundamental one at the
> bottom, what I would call the base.
> 
> 
> Top
> value of attributes
>   attributes
>     element
>     content
> Bottom
> 
> The only experience I have had so far with a "localized" language is
> AppleScript. I'll try to find a reference.

Indeed, I had almost forgotten about AppleScript.

The problem with AppleScript is that it is actually not that
readable/writable (even in English *by* native English readers).
AppleScript has a superficial resemblance/reuse of English terms which makes
it look a lot easier than it actually is (AppleScript is *very* picky about
specific language constructs).  This is in stark contrast with the language
which inspired it, HyperTalk, which is quite easy to both read and write,
and as with natural langauges, provides multiple ways of saying the same
thing and having it just work.  I don't know if HyperTalk was ever
localized.

However, to pop-up a level, this is certainly out-of-scope for
microformats-discuss (as Ryan so well demonstrated this being a problem far
outside the realm of microformats) and thus I suggest that we drop this
thread "Language Maps" and add it to the list of "bad topics" on the
mailing-lists page.

http://microformats.org/wiki/mailing-lists

Thanks,

Tantek