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RE: SML: Second Try

• To: "'Dare Obasanjo'" <dareo@m...>, Xml-Dev <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: SML: Second Try
• From: Jeff Lowery <Jeff.Lowery@c...>
• Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 12:16:42 -0800

From: Dare >

> I don't really see what "trimming the fat out of XML" has to do with
> alternative syntaxes for XML

The gist of it is that by making XML syntax simpler, there's less flammage
about attributes, PIs, ERs, DTDs, namespaces, and so on.  Less flammage,
less calls for revolution.

Of course there will be those who demand feature X, which leads to your next
question:

> What "fat" could you trim from XML that would satisfy the
> binary XML crowd, the XML subset crowd, the inventors of ConciseXML or
> Don park with his Python-esque representation of the XML infoset? 

Byt that's permathread territory, isn't it?   

Let me skirt around it by stating my ambivalence towards XML's future
direction at this point : I'll use whatever becomes of it for whatever I can
use it for.  I have that luxury at the moment, unlike many others whose
careers are staked on its suite of intertwined recommendations.

So I don't care what fat is trim, because I'm fully qualified to butcher it
myself.  What I do see though, is that _if_ any alternative syntaxes gain a
following, then their only common point of interjunction with XML will be
the Infoset.  It therefore weakens, however slightly, the XML syntax proper,
and places the Infoset a tad closer to the center of the XML universe.

Now, I suppose the Infoset could be bypassed by direct syntax-to-syntax
mappings (unless you happen to believe such syntaxes exist fully insulated
in their own little spheres of influence and don't require transliteration,
which I don't think likely).  That's possible, but the abstractions embodied
in the Infoset I think will creep there way into such descriptions; and then
you just might as well go it whole hog.

> Methinks you are confusing issues. 

Methinks I'm often confused, but doesn't stop me from trying.   It's either
that or succumbing to apathy, and I'm not ready for the old folks home just
yet.

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