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RE: The subsetting has begun

• To: 'XML DEV' <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: The subsetting has begun
• From: "Cavnar-Johnson, John" <JCavnar-Johnson@s...>
• Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 15:36:43 -0600
• Disposition-notification-to: "John Cavnar-Johnson" <jcavnar-johnson@s...>
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <3E5FC7A9.43FF7F9D@f...>

Inline, again.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: W. E. Perry [mailto:wperry@f...]
> Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 2:34 PM
> To: XML DEV
> Subject: Re:  The subsetting has begun
> 
> "Cavnar-Johnson, John" wrote:
> 
> > How would standardizing a class of processors that don't process the
> > internal subset, entities, etc. jeopardize what you have achieved?
If
> > there are costs to my proposal that I don't see now, I would like to
> hear
> > them, but don't impute to me positions that I do not hold. Your
> > processor(s) can still handle the documents that these systems would
> > produce. If you use the features that are eliminated from the
subset,
> then
> > consumers of your documents would need to use a processor capable
> > of dealing with them.  Is that cost really significant, and if so,
> please
> > explain?
> 
> As last week's discussion made clear, such processors are
non-conformant
> to
> the XML Rec. That is the reason de jure not to create documents
intended
> for
> such processors and then call either those documents or those
processors
> 'XML'. 

I'm afraid you are begging the question here. I'm specifically
advocating a new standard.  You are wrong in saying that those documents
would not be XML.  As I am proposing a strict subset for parser
conformance, to claim that these documents would not be XML is factually
incorrect.

I have snipped a long, interesting and totally irrelevant description of
your work.

> Now as you say:
> 
> > If you use the features that are eliminated from the subset, then
> > consumers of your documents would need to use a processor capable of
> > dealing with them.  Is that cost really significant, and if so,
please
> > explain?
> 
> I imagine you now see that I must expect that consumers of my
documents
> are
> using a processor conformant to the XML Rec. Sure, there are plenty of
> cases
> where what I produce and publish could be handled by some subset
parser,
> but
> worrying about what those cases are, or worrying at all about how any
one
> consumer of documents has to be treated differently from every other
> potential consumer of those same documents, obviates the essential
> advantage
> of the well-formed-XML-plus-internetwork-topology paradigm.

The real question is whether there is an advantage in redefining the
meaning of well-formed that obviates the disadvantages.  I gather you
think not.  I disagree.  

> There is also
> a
> risk on the other side, which I alluded to in the earlier post.
Wherever
> the
> form in which documents are created is conditioned by agreements
between a
> creator and its expected consumers, the risk is that they will agree
on
> out-of-band semantics which allow them to reduce the content of the
> document
> itself. On the basis of such agreements the 'expected' creators and
> consumers become a cartel from which I am excluded, and their
documents
> become impoverished of information with which I might otherwise
perform
> useful processing. That cost is not only significant, but potentially
> fatal
> not only to what I can do today but to the larger promise of XML.

Nothing I'm proposing impacts that risk, as far as I can tell.

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