Subject: [Ltru] Re: Last registry for now

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 22:08:05 -0700

JFC (Jefsey) Morfin <jefsey at jefsey dot com> wrote:

> What I need (and this is the problem of the whole IANA), is a copy of
> the software generator and a reference to your sources. To be able to
> run it. To verify that I reach the same file as yours in making a
> diff.

There is no software generator, as I told Frank.  I didn't retype
things, but most of the data was copied and pasted and sorted and
otherwise manually massaged with text editors and tools like Excel.
Building a custom generator would have been too much work, what with the
various source formats.

> To do that, we need the stable, clear, scalable description (requested
> by the Charter) about the way the Internet addresses the ISO and non-
> ISO tables variations. This should lead to one or several documented
> codes (practice and codes are the basis for IESG approvals) generating
> the same registry information from the same sources.

I did start to write up a description of the process used to build the
initial registry.  You can read the first installment at
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/init-registry.html, or in your LTRU
archives.  Just as I was starting work on the other parts, the group
invented Suppress-Script (the source data for which is already
generating controversy), and along the way the Deprecated date field was
also added.  I decided to wait until things settled down before
finishing the process description.

> For that your sources must be quoted in your file header (also to
> acknowledge the true authors).

It's easy to see that there is more to this process than copying a
single list from each ISO and UN site.  There are change-notice pages
and such.

> Please provide the trusted URL of the source files you used and the
> source code or the code logic you followed. We inspect them, build our
> own code and generate a copy. We will check it with yours to verify
> that we both/all are right and to understand and correct the possible
> discrepancies. Otherwise we will run it by our own, and if there is a
> discrepancy we start with another unnecessary dispute on sources and
> concepts.

The process for primary language subtags, and the relevant URLs, are in
the page referenced above.  For the ISO 3166, ISO 15924, and UN M.49
codes respectively, you can try:

http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/list-en1-semic.txt
http://www.unicode.org/iso15924/iso15924.txt.zip
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49chang.htm

but as I said, there is much more to it than this.  If you copy the
lists blindly, you are *guaranteed* to have discrepancies.

I will eventually finish the process description, but once again, the
contents of the registry should not distract the group from making
progress on the draft itself.

--
Doug Ewell
Fullerton, California
http://users.adelphia.net/~dewell/

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---

From: "Doug Ewell" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 May 2005 22:34:50 -0700

Frank Ellermann <nobody at xyzzy dot claranet dot de> wrote:

>> the continual updating of the sample registry has become a
>> distraction from the overall process of evaluating the draft
>
> Without your draft registry I wouldn't understand one word in
> the registry draft (excl. its ABNF), the draft registry is no
> distraction, quite the contrary, it's the essence.

I didn't say the registry was a distraction.  I said that continually
updating the content of the registry, adding this country and changing
the punctuation in the name of that script, was a distraction.

>> decisions to exclude (or include) certain "useless" or
>> "stupid" subtags, usually region subtags.
>
> Whether it's "stupid" or "useless" is beside the point, but we
> cannot get rid of it as soon as it's in.

Sorry, my mistake.  I thought I was quoting you, but you never used
those words to describe the subtags you don't like.  The word I was
thinking of was "dubious."

> Playing with your draft registry allows me to test such ideas,
> and maybe the registry draft should say that generic variants
> are a bad idea.  If that's the case, I'm not at all sure.

But you can play with the draft registry, see how things work, without
having its content constantly updated.  That's what is creating all the
list traffic and drawing attention away from the draft.

>> I make only those changes that seem to have consensus within
>> the group or seem uncontroversial.
>
> Yes, and if some results are strange it's not your fault, but
> a problem in the registry draft or in the source standards.

Then let's talk about them directly, not in terms of tweaking the
registry to make the draft come out right.

>> the time when group members should focus on fine-tuning the
>> registry, not now.
>
> IBTD.  Trying to do something with your draft registry is the
> best way to find problems in the registry draft.  Four of my
> five "last points" are a direct consequence of simply trying
> to parse lstreg.txt 2005-04-30.  These five "last points" are
> certainly not about the two obscure region codes 003 and 200.

The question of how to populate the Suppress-Script fields is something
I warned about, and predicted would be a problem.  Everyone wanted to
talk about English (one well-known, stable script) and Serbian (two
well-known, stable scripts), and now we don't know what to do about
hundreds of other languages.  There simply is no universally accepted
source for this data.