[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Why do we write standards?
> From: Bill dehOra <Wdehora@c...> > I worry about XML, when I see 'added extras' like metadata, > namespaces, XSL, CSS, XLink crawling out of the woodwork. Not that > the goal of these standards isn't desirable. But they serve to make > XML complicated and difficult to implement. Hear, hear. The problem isn't that, for example, there is an XML Namespaces Recommendation. As I see it, the problem is that many of these kinds of things are being done with the idea that they are somehow going to require support from all XML implementations, thus making XML a bigger and bigger monolith, more and more self-contradictory and redundant, and harder and harder to understand and implement in any given situation. For example, with the best of intentions, the XML InfoSet Recommendation could regard XML itself as having non-optional properties that *must* exhibit values when Namespaces are used. But it would be much better (more parsimonious, more modular, less obese) to make support for such properties optional, so that, for example, all XML implementations are not required to recognize colonized names as namespace references. The difference is all in whether we view Namespaces as *an intrinsic aspect of XML* (bad), or whether we view Namespaces as *a particular technique for using XML* (good). Bill dehOra's note reminded me of some words that I heard on the occasion of the death of a certain monolithic standard that died of obesity: "In attempting to make the standard as useful as possible for every purpose, we made it so big and complex that nobody could use it for any purpose." "This standard absorbed all available resources, grew bigger and bigger, and provided no benefit to anyone. This standard was a cancer, it had to die, and we're better off now that it's dead." XML can be saved from obesity. After all, SGML never succumbed. Of course, SGML has Charles Goldfarb to defend it against creeping scope. And he does defend it very staunchly indeed, and maintaining that defense has occasionally been costly. (I'm trying to think who defends XML from creeping scope. I should know the answer to that question, but I don't.) -Steve -- Steven R. Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc. srn@t... http://www.techno.com ftp.techno.com voice: +1 972 517 7954 <<-- new phone number fax +1 972 517 4571 <<-- new fax number pager (150 characters max): srn-page@t... Suite 211 <<-- new address 7101 Chase Oaks Boulevard Plano, Texas 75025 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 unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; unsubscribe 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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