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Re: re: The J2ME pseudo-XML botch

• To: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
• Subject: Re: re: The J2ME pseudo-XML botch
• From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
• Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 18:46:06 +0000
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <3E590ADF.9020005@t...>
• References: <5.1.0.14.0.20030222193255.00b1ade0@m...><5.1.0.14.0.20030222193255.00b1ade0@m...>

At 09:54 23/02/2003 -0800, Tim Bray wrote:
>Sean McGrath wrote:
>>[Tim Bray]
>>  >It's OK to define a custom language for your own purposes, but it's 
>> not OK at all to use the term "XML" in
>>  >describing it;
>>Interesting.
>>Basically every XML editor/ETL/database loader I have ever come across is 
>>non-conformant to
>>the XML 1.0 specification in some way or other.
>>The world is full of "xml parsers" that only support bits of XML 1.0.
>
>Etc... there's a word for these situations: "bugs".  Bugs are a fact of 
>life and we fix them and deal with them.  When someone writes a 
>specification for a potentially-very-important software library and writes 
>the bug into the definition, that's a different level of seriousness. -

Unfortunately, it is also a well known fact of life that some "bugs" are 
never intended to be fixed - they are just unimplemented
features.

How much of ANSI C++ does your average C++ compiler support? At what point 
does it cease to be
a "C++ compiler" because of bugs/omissions? At what point does an XML 
parser cease to be that because
of bugs/ommissions?

As I said before, if we applied a draconian interpretation (which I think 
would be great for interoperability), I wonder
how many of our favourite tools would be left standing?

The sad reality about standards is that all "standards" are just lunes on 
the noosphere.
XML is no different.
         http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200111/msg00962.html

XML is just as much a state of mind as any other standard:-)
         http://www.itworld.com/nl/xml_prac/10182001/

Actually, SGML was probably different. It allowed you to be 100% compliant 
but leave out pretty much everything :-)

regards,
Sean

• Follow-Ups:
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• References:
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    • From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
  • Re: re: The J2ME pseudo-XML botch
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>

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