Re: Specifying a language preference in the message header.

[David Boreham <david_list@boreham.org>]

> I think it would be a good idea to have an optional attribute/element in
the
> ebXML header document that indicates the preferred language of the sender
of
> a message. This would be used, for example, when creating descriptions of
> errors.
>
> Even if there is a Party Agreement, I think that you might want to vary
this
> on a message by message basis.
>
> Thoughts?

Bad idea.
Error messages imply UI, which is not the province of a message _transport_.
Such things should be conveyed in a machine-readable form, and UI at
the viewer's end can render them in whatever form and language they want.
Furthermore, if you want to convey information about a _person_ or
_role_ (not the same as a message sender), then leverage some existing
scheme such as X.500 or LDAP. Isn't the preferred language a property of the
person rather than the message ? (e.g. what if someone changes their
preferred language ? messages out in cyberspace now contain incorrect
information). So I also disagree that it's useful to specify this on a
per-message basis.

My experience is that one only uses natural language encoding in
messages when there is no alternative (e.g. in Internet e-mail,
bounce messages and out of office messages are encoded in
one particular natural language, but that's only because the
designer of the transport originally omitted to specify a machine-readable
form for such information). Is that the case here ? (I'm guessing
no, since this is a newly designed protocol).