Counting Heads

John Cowan cowan at mercury.ccil.org
Fri May 30 09:59:59 CEST 2003


Doug Ewell scripsit:

> For example, they should know that "ba" and "bal" and "ban" (etc.) are
> valid RFC 3066 tags, but not "bad" or "bag" (or "bak", which is valid
> ISO 639-2 but superseded by "ba").
> 
> Can an application really "support" or "adhere to" RFC 3066 while only
> recognizing one or two tags?

I'm not sure if this is jest or earnest, or some slippery ground between.
(Remembering the millennia-old chestnut about boys and frogs.)
Or in en-internet, "Are you trolling me?"

Anyhow, I would certainly think it bad design (because not robust)
to complain about invalid tags that I don't understand.  If I were
writing a multilingual spelling checker with materials to hand, it
would understand en-us, en-gb, and de-*, and reject anything else,
whether valid nv or invalid xxx.

-- 
I suggest you call for help,                    John Cowan
or learn the difficult art of mud-breathing.    jcowan at reutershealth.com
        --Great-Souled Sam                      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan


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