[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: XML complexity, namespaces (was WG)
[Richard Goerwitz:] > [Certain members of] ...the old SGML community... looks to > me as if it's trying to kludge architectural forms onto > XML, maybe in efforts to save DTDs. I would plead "Guilty as charged" if you said basically the same thing in a more positive way, and without the implicit accusation of syntax-bigotry: "Certain members of the SGML community are demonstrating how to use architectural forms with XML. Thus they are promoting the concept of structural and semantic modeling and validation in XML." It is largely immaterial whether the old DTD syntax survives in XML-land. However, the idea of validatable structure is of vital importance if we're to have efficient, reliable information interchange via XML resources. If an XML resource uses more than one vocabulary (as namespaces are designed to allow), then the use of each of those vocabularies should be validatable according to its own syntactic and semantic constraints. This is what architectural forms can do -- and are already doing -- for XML resources. Namespaces (at least the bulk of their syntax and the idea of identifying a namespace via a URI) could also be used to do architectural forms. The alternative SGML syntax for doing architectural forms works perfectly in XML. I demonstrated that fact at my talk at XTech 99 (http://www.hytime.org/papers/srnXTech99/). I also offered to share our version of SP (including sx and sgmlnorm) that reads and processes the alternative PI-based syntax for architectural form declaration that was adopted over a year ago by the ISO, mostly for the benefit of XML users. My offer stands; the catch is that this small change to the underlying SP parser hasn't been fully integrated with SP's error-reporting mechanisms yet. Some public-spirited person is welcome to that task. Takers? (Anyway, the real issue is what XML parsers will do with inherited information architectures, not what SGML/XML parsers like SP will do with them. What SGML/XML parsers do has been decided long since, and James Clark's free SP parser already implements the architectural forms paradigm very effectively indeed.) I often hear about how inheritance will be supported by future "schema languages" for XML documents. The architectural forms paradigm (regardless of the syntax used to exploit it) is, at the very least, a major part of the solution. If one doesn't yet understand how each inherited architecture results in one or two distinct groves (in addition to the primary XML grove), all cross-connected, then one doesn't yet "get" it. Everything in my experience convinces me that, when one does "get" it, the simplicity and elegance of the whole thing, taken together, makes its adoption a no-brainer. "The solution, once found, is obvious." I would strongly urge that the syntax of vocabulary inheritance in XML be designed *after* the architectural forms paradigm is well understood, and *after* there is consensus about how much of it to adopt and exploit in XML. In any case, the importance of being able to validate every XML resource's the use of every inherited vocabulary, on that vocabulary's own terms, cannot be overemphasized. If one accepts the principle that such validation is essential for reliable information interchange, then I believe the whole architectural forms thing follows inexorably, groves and all. -Steve -- Steven R. Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc. srn@t... http://www.techno.com ftp.techno.com voice: +1 972 231 4098 (at ISOGEN: +1 214 953 0004 x137) fax +1 972 994 0087 (at ISOGEN: +1 214 953 3152) 3615 Tanner Lane Richardson, Texas 75082-2618 USA 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/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 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...)
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|