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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: The subsetting has begun
 "Cavnar-Johnson, John" wrote: > I disagree here. I don't see a fracture between users of validating > parsers and non-validating parsers today. What's the basis for your > assertion that this will have serious consequences? Nobody's saying that > the documentation world can't keep there current tools and methodologies. > I think the theoretical users of the new parsers have little or no > interaction with that world anyway. I hate to see this false dichotomy > between doc heads and data heads perpetuated. I'm interested in systems > that integrate business documents (purchase orders, contracts, etc.) with > relational systems. I consider myself very "document-oriented", but DTDs, > entities and such don't buy me much of anything and the non-optional > nature of the internal subset is extremely frustrating. In the fifth anniversary celebratory essays there flickers still the dream of data fusion, under which there is in fact no dichotomy of doc heads and data heads. What has changed is the orthodox opinion of what that fusion is to be built upon. In the 'remembering the original XML vision' thread Dare Obasanjo succinctly made the case for fusion built upon infosets which, like you apparently, he believes is the new orthodox opinion. I do not question that may now be the opinion of the majority. However, I build (and have for quite some time) 'systems that integrate business documents (purchase orders, contracts, etc.) with relational systems' and with transactional processors. I can demonstrate with copious evidence that integration based upon infosets does not work for the business documents which are in fact found, as documents, in daily use while conversely integration based upon syntax and a bare minimum of syntactic rules, like well-formedness under the XML 1.0 Rec, does work spectacularly well for such integration. It is unfortunately clear that many are not interested in the empirical evidence of how well integration upon syntax works, preferring from polemic motivations to dismiss its details with no better argument than that they 'don't buy me much of anything'. Do you understand how thin and petulant that argument must sound when what is at stake for me is losing the working integration which I have already achieved? If document creators follow your prescriptions their documents become increasingly opaque to me and to the methods which now work very well in integrating those documents into transactional processing. When you reach an entirely infoset-based integration you will have succeeded in limiting its benefits solely to the cartel who accept your precise premises in toto before ever gaining useful access to your 'documents'. You will have also, not incidentally, created a model of 'business document' suitable for your processing which barely resembles documents which have natively arisen within businesses and remain the basis of conveying most information there. That is, instead of quick, easy and working integration of what is now in use on the document side with the processing methodology which pervades the data side, you will find yourself offering business only the enormous cost of building your preferred infrastructure before they ever enjoy the integration you offer, which will be an integration only with others willing to submit to the same onerous conditions. Respectfully, Walter Perry 
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