Re: release-notes.zh_CN
On Fri, Dec 15, 2006 at 07:28:08AM +0100, Danai SAE-HAN wrote:
> From: Ming Hua <minghua@rice.edu>
>
> > And if you are suggesting using entities like "&cjkspace;" in the SGML,
> > then I'll probably object. It's too cumbersome and counter-intuitive
> > for spaces that are so frequently used.
>
> I don't think it's too cumbersome if the entity's name is
> abbreviated. Or we could just use "~" in the SGML source and then use
> sed to change it all in "&cjkspace;" when processing it to other
> formats, and use \tilde for real tildes.
I don't know how fast you type Chinese (I suspect not very fast), but
for me, using anything else instead of space is a huge distraction. Of
course using ~ would be much better than &cjkspace;, but that's still
quite cumbersome IMHO.
> Point is that a text should not only be informative, but also be
> written in a structural way. That's the power of markup languages
> such as SGML and TeX. If it wasn't, then we could just return to
> writing plain texts without much further ado. We need to help the
> computer to make the right decisions, and inserting an extra entity
> will do that.
And I think one of the main strong point TeX and SGML have over other
formats such as MS word is that they separate the structure/content and
the layout/style. I feel that using ~ in CJK LaTeX to deal with the
spacing issue is a violation to this spirit. I can't suggest better
alternative, though.
With all these said, however, it's ultimately up to the decision of the
document translation coordinators. I am not one of them, so there is no
point persuading me. If no one else, especially no translators or
coordinators, is interested in this topic, I suggest we agree to
disagree and let this thread die.
Ming
2006.12.18
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