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re: Presumption of XML's Stability (was RE: XML Blueberry (non-ASCII

• From: Murata Makoto <mura034@a...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 09:10:51 +0900

Mike Champion wrote:

>> XML was specifically designed to be stable on the
>> order of thousands of years.
>
> I would be very interested to hear the views of the members of the original
> XML WG as to the truth of this assertion. 

Roger L. Costello wrote:

> Here's what Tim Bray said on this list on April 4, 2001:
>
> "In the closing days of getting XML 1.0 out the door, a 
> lot of *reasonable* requests for enhancements were, in 
> good software engineering style, kiboshed as being "for 
> 1.1".  Once 1.0 got out the door, everyone developed a 
> strong case of (healthy IMHO) paranoia about screwing 
> with the thing, and personally I'd be astounded to see 
> anyone take on XML 1.1 in my lifetime; the cost is very high and the
> need doesn't seem that great..." 

Reports from the XML WG frequently mentions XML 1.1.  The original plan 
was to create XML 1.1 really soon.
 
I find an interesting paragraph as below:

	The WG has an outstanding work item to update Working Draft and 
	PR dates for XML 1.1, and for XLL 1.0. There was some sentiment 
	that XLL 1.0 is of higher priority than XML 1.0, and in particular, 
	that it would be desirable that XLL 1.0 become a W3C Proposed 
	Recommendation at the time of the WWW7 conference in Brisbane in 
	April 1998.

Another interesting decision:

	S.38 Should the grammar for version information be changed to allow
	XML processors to accept version="1.1" without a fatal error, in the
	interests of a smoother transition to later versions of XML?
	
	Decision: Yes, a form of simple name token should be defined for use
	there. Accompanying prose should say that the intent is that version
	1.0 will mean this version of this spec and other values will be used
	for later revisions. Processors may signal an error if they receive
	documents labeled with versions they do not support. (But they need
	not do so: a document may be labeled HTML 4.0 and be, at the same
	time, legal HTML 1.0, and similarly for XML.) It is an error for a
	document to use the value 1.0 if it does not conform to this version
	of this spec.
	
	Rationale: otherwise, the transition from version 1.0 of XML to later
	versions will be fraught with problems. There is anecdotal evidence
	that some other specifications which made this mistake have continued
	to require that data conforming to versions 2 and later of the spec be
	labeled version=1.0, precisely because the installed base of parsers
	had hard-coded the value.


http://www.w3.org/XML/9712-reports.html

Cheers,

Makoto

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