I am looking to build a multilingual website using MS expressions web. The website will consist of a blog and possibly a art display portions. I would like to do all translations manually but I don't want to have more then one CSS stack. What would be the best way to populate the website text. Because this is just a learning experience I will host the website myself. What would be the best method to implement such a website: XML or SQL.
In my professional opinion I would use SQL simply because databases are always easier to edit and handle (in my opinion...) than XML, I like KatieK's idea of simply querying a different database based on which language it is in. However, if this is a learning experience I would use whichever language you know least of b/c it will teach you more.
Also (as a side-note), if this is run locally, you have to consider the ramifications of having MYSQL database calls, it means you have to deal with server side scripting (I'm assuming you will get the XML using js, although I could be wrong), its CPU usage (although I wouldn't worry too much abut that...), and preventing mysql injection.
Finally (this is my last side-note, I swear), I know you said that you wanted to do all the translations yourself, but I thought it couldn't hurt to mention that you don't have to.
Anyway, that's my two cents.