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Re: Objections to / uses of PSVI?

• To: xml-dev <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: Objections to / uses of PSVI?
• From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>
• Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 20:53:52 -0400
• In-reply-to: <3CE193C0.7290457C@r...>

5/14/2002 6:46:24 PM, Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@r...> wrote:

>
>
>1) Additional data values (defaults). Since this already exists with
>DTDs, it seems any controversy here should have existed before the PSVI
>came to being.

Lots of things "just work" in the SGML world where the DTD is 
necessary and the parser does everything.  Things get much messier
in the world of multiple parsers with different levels of DTD
support, and where SAX and DOM "pipelines" are operating rather than
one parser doing everything.

Default attribute values are a ugly mess in the DOM even with
DTDs, and introduce almost undecideable behavior when schemas
are put into the picture (because of the lack of a standard
processing model). My favorite scenario is that deleteing an attribute
that has a default value -- according to DOM Level 1, but not
consistently implemented -- should cause it to magically pop 
back into existence.  The effects of this on the DOM event model
are not obvious -- is there a delete event?  A delete event and a
create event?  A modify event, if the value changed?
If the attribute already had the default value,
nothing has really changed, should the event(s) fire? Us "experts"
can deconstruct the specs and logically figure out what should happen,
but I'm sure that the poor bastards who stay up
all night debugging their scripts and ultimately RTFM and figure this
out will be looking for someone to blame.  Hmm, maybe
that's why I'm on every spam list on the planet, "poor bastards
who stayed up all night" wrestling with the DOM getting their revenge 
by signing me up :~)  


The sanest solution is to stay as far as possible from PSVI-ish things.
 

>
>2) Type information. My guess is that this is where the greatest
>controversy / utility is. On the utility side, it means you can do
>type-aware programming. On the controversy side, it means you can do
>type-aware programming :)

That says it all :~) 

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