[tei-council] xml-colon-thing

[Christian Wittern]

Lou Burnard <lou.burnard at computing-services.oxford.ac.uk> writes:

> The Character set workgroup has proposed and the Council has (I think) 
> accepted that  the global lang attribute should be replaced by a global 
> xml:lang attribute; likewise the Standoff WG has proposed and the 
> Council is (I think) still ruminating about the notion that the global 
> "id" attribute should be replaced by a global xml:id attribute.
>
> Pondering how to actually implement these proposals in P5 without 
> causing too much havoc, I have reached the conclusion that it would be 
> both feasible and advisable to make the transition in a rather more 
> cautious way. I am proposing to add xml:lang as an *alternative* to lang 
> in the definition for  tei.global.attributes rather than as a 
> replacement for it.  

I think we should do what we can to make the transition to P5 easier,
on the other hand, I do not see much to be gained in making a half-way
transition possible, let alone recommending it.  The value TEI
requires for lang has to follow ISO 639 and RFC 3066 (might be wrong
with the number..) and xml:lang does so similarily, except that it
point to newer versions that are themselves backward compatible.  In
most cases, there will be no change necessary.  So I do not really see
what is to be gained by allowing lang.  The case is of course
different with xml:id, and the whole ID/IDREF stuff -- as I understand
the current situation, there will be an option to retain ID/IDREF
processing in schemata that have this notion, no? 


All the best,

Christian


-- 

 Christian Wittern 
 Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
 47 Higashiogura-cho, Kitashirakawa, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8265, JAPAN