In i18n (an OpenACS project goal), when using UTF-8 or greater, some writing directions are top-to-bottom (vertical rendering) as well as right-to-left and left-to-right. With vertical rendering, the semantics top-bottom inaccurately reflect the page positions (left side, right side). Using first-last or begin-end etc. more accurately describe the template "position" and avoids confusion.
I may be mistaken, but Japanese and Chinese newspapers are still rendered in a more or less similar to western manner, i.e. they look like:
S O M E H E A D E R S T U F F
--------------------------------
s i o
t n r
o d
r t e
i t r
e b .
s
--------------------------------
and not
S | s o
O | t r
M | o d
E | r e
| i r
H | e .
E | s
A |
D | i
E | n
R |
| t
S | t
T | b
U |
F |
F |
