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RE: The subsetting has begun

• To: "'Simon St.Laurent'" <simonstl@s...>, XML Dev <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: The subsetting has begun
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 09:33:11 -0600

Favored is a strong term, but OK.  What would be 
interesting would be a comparison of Common XML 
and XML-SW to determine what features two groups 
considered essential and how they differ.  You say 
the essential subset is:

	2.2 Elements
	2.3 Attributes
	2.4 Namespaces
	2.5 Textual Content

and now revise that to unbundle the namespaces so

   elements, attributes, text

are core.  

Given there are those who say attributes are a botch, 
an even more conservative position is 

   elements, text

and if we go more minimal than that, we are back to CSV.
I have seen message types with exactly that last set
plus the XML declaration, so it isn't unthinkable but 
I'm not sure it's worth a dll.

It would be interesting to hear from the supporters 
of a subset if their applications can work with only 
the features of either of those two extreme minimal 
subsets, or even the documented Common XML core.  Given 
the extensions, Common XML is XML, yes?  So what does 
it achieve except to document where the reliability 
begins to drop off, and that is a claim in need of 
some documentation itself.  No aspersions intended, 
Simon, just a desire that as this thread continues, 
we make sure we are debating verified results and not 
our intuitions unless we denote them as such.

<rant>Everyone claims that they are defending "interoperability" 
yet I don't find a definition for that term so I 
have to wonder if all are defending the same thing.
I've yet to figure out how XML succeeded because 
it provides "interoperability".  It provides a common 
syntax for exchanging data via some transport (network, 
floppy, carrier pigeon with text wrapped around the 
good leg).  That is where markup stops but the claims 
go on.</rant>

len


From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@s...]

Common XML [1] started with a core - one I now suspect may be too big,
largely because of namespaces - and then described layers beyond that
core.  

That might be a good operation to perform on Len's favored XML-SW early
on; I suspect doing that might well lead to the 'unbundling' of
namespaces, xml:xyz, and the infoset.

[1] - http://simonstl.com/articles/cxmlspec.txt

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