Re: [help-GIFT] MRML stuff

[Wolfgang Müller]

Dear Pruet, Steph, all,
> > I'm in Thailand now, already complete my master degree (thanks for
> > David).

Congrats!

>  I'll continue working on region query stuff as promised, anyway,
> > the I18N issue interests me as well, because I'm not English native
> > speaking.
>
>  So are most of us :-)

...and still I was sooo sure, GIFT would never get i18n...

> > An outline or mini-howto will be great, both in MRML side, and how to add
> > new handling code for the extension in GIFT too.

In some ways things are underways. I am currently finishing an article for a 
german computer magazine which I might distill into an english-language howto 
in the next couple of months (you see, I am getting careful here, my promise 
space is close to exhaustion :-( )

>  I see this as an extendable library.

What is "this"?

> We discussed this with Wolfgang
> sometimes ago and I'll sketch something...

I think stylesheets are what gives us flexibility here. Somehow I see future 
libMRML as quite similar to what it is now plus a stylesheet processor that 
translates between differring versions of MRML where applicable. This would 
give us a maximum of extensibility.

> > I quite agree with him. GIFT is a test-bed for MRML, hence, MRML should
> > have its own space, or even community.
>
>  Thanks :-)

Good. Everyone agrees with that?


> > I didn't look at xml:lang yet, but the recent proposal by Wolfgang is
> > looked very good for me.

Thanks.

>  I agree that whatever is simpler is better. However, people get used to
> some "style". I was saying that some people have had some thoughts on
> that and rather that reinventing something that may eventually converge
> to their solutions, we should not divert for them too much.....

I see this point. However, the focus is quite different. The xml:lang tells 
the processor what language to expect within the tag that contains the 
xml:lang attribute. You can have several tags with the same content in 
different languages present in the same text. The processor will then choose 
the appropriate language. This is quite similar to my first proposal, with 
the difference that it applies only to elements, and not to attributes. 
However, in the current proposal, we enable the client to choose which 
language it wants to see, and then we send only this language over the wire, 
thus saving bandwidth.

>
>  I forgot to add the proposal of an Issuzilla list (or Bugzilla?)
>

Yes, that would be great. 

> > I think about MRML<->SOAP translation for sometime. It should not be hard
> > because both of them are based on MRML. If we can make MRML<->SOAP
> > gateway or proxy, it will be very easy for
>
>            ^---- (you mean XML :-)
>
> > developers to develop front-ends using Java or .NET .

Yes, that would be cool. Same applies for the backend. It might be cool to 
have a soap client as a plugin for the GIFT. Then, for some people the 
overhead of writing things usable for the gift would still be reduced. Which 
makes me re-think of CORBA...

>  I suppose we should at least work inb the sense of having MRML included
> as an XML-protocol here:
> http://www.w3.org/2000/03/29-XML-protocol-matrix
>  The proposal of having a number of consistencies with the W3C's other
> specs go towards that aims (use of a namespace - mrml: -, extension
> protocol, ...)

Yes, this would be cool (as discussed before).

Cheers,
Wolfgang