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RE: SAX-ext Attribute + Entity Parsing

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: Justin Couch <justin@v...>, XML-Dev <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 09:03:58 -0600

Be fair, Justin:

1.  The X3D-Schema can be changed.  The 
DTD needs to be dumped sooner or later.  
Clean diagrams do not of necessity create 
clean object designs.

2.  They use parameter entities because 
the XHTMLers told them that was the 
"standard" approach to modularization 
and for some years, it has been.  There 
are other means but it was The SGML Way 
and people are hung up on it.  This 
urge to merge with the W3C can be 
helpful or hurtful, but it forces them 
to sync to the XHTML development, itself 
hobbled by its own history.

3.  Both Microstation and Autodesk are 
implementations, a bit long in the tooth, 
and X3D should not be hobbled by that.  If 
it is, then it is not VRML200x but VRML 0.5.

It is time for X3D to move on to 
XML Schemas.  The challenger to X3D is 
not VRML or Microstation and Autodesk, 
but RM3D and the proprietary solutions for Web3D. 
XML apps derive their strength from their 
combination with other XML languages.  X3D  
is "hideously complex" because:

1.  It used parameter entities to do the job 
of the abstract object model of VRML97 (nodes and fields).

2.  It attempted to keep fields as attributes 
and nodes as elements refusing to recognize 
the mismatch of these in the data model.  The 
underpowering of DTDs was not well-understood. 

3.  The X3D designers need to understand namespace 
based modularization.  That puts X3D 
back in the mainstream of XML development.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h

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