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R: Number of active public XML schemas

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: R: Number of active public XML schemas
• From: Chizzolini Stefano <chist@c...>
• Date: Wed, 3 Nov 2004 09:36:22 +0100

> -----Messaggio originale-----
> Da:	Ronald Bourret [SMTP:rpbourret@r...]
> Inviato:	martedì 2 novembre 2004 7.06
> A:	'xml-dev'
> Oggetto:	Re:  Number of active public XML schemas
> 
> Michael Kay wrote:
> 
	>>Or because they [DTDs] are easier to understand, 
	>> 
	>> I have yet to see a DTD of more than trivial size that is not
totally
	>> impenetrable. And fragile too, if you are rash enough to make a
one line
	>> change that breaks an entire edifice of parameter entities and
conditional
	>> sections.

	>From personal experience, I'd have to say that complex DTDs are 
	>slightly more penetrable than XSDs. As a user, I'm usually just
trying 
	>to find out one or two things and I can do this by chasing entities

	>through the DTD with a text editor. I give up completely when faced
with 
	>a complex XSD document. (And in neither case can I get an overall
picture.)

	>Which raises an interesting question: Should there be a non-XML
syntax 
	>for XSDs like there is for RELAX NG? It's always been an article of

	>faith for me that schemas should be written in XML, if for no other

	>reason than not having to write another parser. But one does have
to 
	>wonder...

I think there are some valid reasons for writing schemas in XML:
seamlessness, elegance and power. Adopting a "self-describing" language
syntax avoids the users from learning a new one and allows to leverage many
existing applications derived from the original spec (in this case, XML
spec); I mean, for example, the chance to dynamically generate brand new
schemas through XSL transformations.

Stefano

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