[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: Integrity in the Hands of the Client

• From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
• To: xml-dev@i...
• Date: Fri, 21 Nov 1997 09:01:17 -0800

At 10:56 AM 21/11/97 -0500, Joe Lapp wrote:
>In this posting I'm going to be a little bold and propose that both
>the XML and DOM specifications are flawed.  

Mr. Lapp has discovered one of the well-known shortcomings of SGML,
inherited by XML; namely, the typing and constraint mechanisms supplied
by DTDs are well-known to be insufficiently rich to allow their use
for purposes which we have come to expect of database schemas.  

More obviously, if, in Mr. Lapp's example, I wanted to give prices
for the books, I might want to be able to say that this has to be 
a number, with 2 digits right of the decimal point.  SGML doesn't
help you here either.

Yes; we need a new and richer form of schema.  No boldness is
required. -Tim

xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i...
Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/
To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message;
(un)subscribe xml-dev
To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message;
subscribe xml-dev-digest
List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)

• Prev by Date: Re: Query Languages for XML
• Next by Date: Re: Integrity in the Hands of the Client
• Previous by thread: Re: Integrity in the Hands of the Client
• Next by thread: RE: Integrity in the Hands of the Client
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread