[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: XML-Data: advantages over DTD syntax? (and some wishes)
[Paul Prescod] > >The relevant question is *which syntax is better*? I think that from a >reader's and writer's point of view, the current DTD syntax is better. >It is more readable and compact. From a *programmers* point of view, the >new syntax is better because it allows you to reduce the number of >parsers in your system. > Yes it reduces the number of parsers "a good thing (tm)" but isn't the big win of the XML-Data approach is the extra miles per gallon that accrue to all the XML application software? All of a sudden it becomes possible to typeset documentation of schemata by processing them with straight XML typesetting tools. It becomes possible to load schemata into XML databases as first class citizens. XML greppers can grep 'em. XML web harversters can harvest 'em. It becomes possible to contemplate a schema derivation mechanism based on using XLL to "cherry-pick" from a collection of existing schemata. It becomes possible to contemplate using an XML to XML transformation system to transform schemata and then auto-generate the instance transformation. [Insert thousands of other possibilities here]. For me the big win is the simplification it could bring to base XML application development and the sheer intellectual appeal of it. It is a very computer science-ish, Lisp-ish, Dame Ada Lovelace-type, KISS way of looking at things. A grand unifying theory of a sort. XML-Data is very much in tune with some of XML's' design goals (ease of implementation, relative unimportance of minimisation etc.). However it sits uneasily with the all important "XML is SGML" criteria. For this very good reason DTD syntax must be kept. However, if developers implemented DTDs via a transformation to XML-Data..... The XML world would then have the freedom to create new and better syntaxes for schemata safe in the knowledge that todays tools that can process XML will process these new syntactic sugars via transformation to base XML - the mother of all syntaxes. Sean Mc Grath sean@d... Digitome Electronic Publishing http://www.digitome.com xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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