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Re: Wikipedia on XML

• From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@ibiblio.org>
• To: XML Developers List <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
• Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:27:55 -0700

On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 2:22 PM, Michael Ludwig<milu71@gmx.de> wrote:

> So given the rest is pretty useful and the DTD syntax and functionality
> is really easy to learn and understand, why should it have been a
> mistake to include this great bag of features in XML?

The internal DTD subset has been a world of hurt for parser
implementers. It's really what pushes XML over the edge out of the
realm of the Desperate Perl Hacker. It makes parsers much more
complex, and arguably slower. It also introduces some security issues
that wouldn't otherwise be present.

Were we starting over today, I would argue strongly in favor of
eliminating the internal DTD subset entirely and leaving the
definition of the schema language outside the spec so that the DOCTYPE
could point to schemas in different languages which parser vendors
would be free to implement or not as they chose.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold
elharo@ibiblio.org

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Wikipedia on XML
    • From: Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@Sun.COM>
  • Re: Wikipedia on XML
    • From: Michael Ludwig <mlu@as-guides.com>

• References:
  • Re: Wikipedia on XML
    • From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@ibiblio.org>
  • RE: Wikipedia on XML
    • From: "Michael Kay" <mike@saxonica.com>
  • Re: Wikipedia on XML
    • From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@ibiblio.org>
  • Re: Wikipedia on XML
    • From: Michael Ludwig <milu71@gmx.de>