W3C Publishes Best Practices for XML Internationalization

W3C's Internationalization Tag Set (ITS) Working Group has published a
Group Note for "Best Practices for XML Internationalization." The
specification provides a set of guidelines for developing XML documents
and schemas that are internationalized properly. Following the best
practices describes here allow both the developer of XML applications,
as well as the author of XML content to create material in different
languages. This document and "Internationalization Tag Set (ITS)
Version 1.0" implement requirements formulated in "Internationalization
and Localization Markup Requirements." This note is intended to
complement the W3C ITS Recommendation, since not all
internationalization-related issues can be resolved by the special
markup described in ITS. The best practices in this document therefore
go beyond application of ITS markup to address a number of problems
that can be avoided by correctly designing the XML format, and by
applying a additional guidelines when developing content. Guidelines
for designers and developers of XML applications are presented in
three sections. Section 2 "When Designing an XML Application" provides
a list of some of the important design choices you should make in
order to ensure the internationalization of your format. Section 4
"Generic Techniques" provides additional generic techniques such as
writing ITS rules or adding an attribute to a schema; such techniques
apply to many of the best practices. Section 5 "ITS Applied to
Existing Formats" provides a set of concrete examples on how to apply
ITS to existing XML based formats; this section illustrates many of
the guidelines in this document. Guidelines for users and authors of
XML content are outlined in other document sections. Section 3 "When
Authoring XML Content" provides a number of guidelines on how to create
content with internationalization in mind. Many of these best practices
are relevant regardless of whether or not your XML format was developed
especially for internationalization. Section 4.1 "Writing ITS Rules"
provides practical guidelines on how to write ITS rules. Such
techniques may be useful when applying some of the more advanced
authoring best practices. More Information