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Re: Goodbye to textual applications?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Goodbye to textual applications?
• From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
• Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2001 10:46:19 +0000
• In-reply-to: <3C227D87.CA75AD82@a...>
• References: <9A4FC925410C024792B85198DF1E97E4021BD057@u...><200112201636.IAA25760@d...><20011220165332.GA21240@u...><20011220160231.E422@p...>

[Marcus Carr]
Perhaps I'm atypical, but most of my XML data is based on (if not
>validated against) a DTD. If my DTD doesn't mesh with my data, it probably
>means that my data is wrong. Reports about the death of DTDs continue to
>be greatly exaggerated...

Amen.

I use DTDs for their most excellent powerful, intuitive, consise,
extended regular expression notation. I eschew all the other stuff
heaped in there from the SGML days where possible. It is truly exasperating
to see *ML.org sites being created at a rate of knots and their drivers
getting all "deeply committed" to W3C XML Schema without thinking
through the implications. Especially for document-oriented XML applications.

I said it at the Orlando conference and I'll say it again here. If w3C schema
is so complex that you *need* tools to visualize it then its XML 1.0 syntactic
base will not save us from the clutches of proprietary tool vendors.

I want to own my own data. Thats why I use XML and semantic encoding where
possible. I also want to *own* my content models. Any technology that precludes
me popping my models into a text editor and grokking what is going on flies
in the face of my goals.

DTDs are not perfect, there are multiple alternatives, some better than
others for document-oriented XML applications.

I used to think that XML would finally break down what I always thought of as
an accidental divide between "data" and "documents".

It does appear to me now that the chasm is too wide for XML to cross. Our kids
will revisit this one mid-century.

Relax NG,
Sean

• Follow-Ups:
  • IBTWSH in RNG (was: Goodbye to textual applications?)
    • From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
  • Re: Goodbye to textual applications?
    • From: Paul T <pault12@p...>

• References:
  • Time to put SGML out to pasture? (was RE: Why would MS want to make XML break on UNIX, Perl, Python, etc ?)
    • From: "Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@S...>
  • Re: Time to put SGML out to pasture?
    • From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>
  • Re: Goodbye to textual applications?
    • From: Andrew Kuchling <akuchlin@m...>
  • Re: Goodbye to textual applications?
    • From: Adam Turoff <ziggy@p...>
  • Re: Goodbye to textual applications?
    • From: Marcus Carr <mrc@a...>

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