[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: filtering noise (was Re: SAX LexicalHandler::comment issue)
"> == Mike.Champion@S... > But I've also been answering "help!" questions about the DOM long enough to > know that you can't assume that anyone will RTFM (RTFS?), and setting the > default to throw away noise will inevitably lead to howls from people who > *need* their <expletive deleted> comments, PIs, and CDATA sections. I've been answering "help!" questions (in general; less recently for DOM :) to know that howls come up regardless of whether or not you do the right thing! So for such issues I look at other factors: which approach makes better systems be easier to develop? Which wastes less memory? (That can be be a real concern for DOM developers. I've seen "noise" costs in the 20% range for some data models, though they vary wildly.) > I don't think the DOM can take the lead here; either the InfoSet has to > first define the difference between music and noise, or the XML Core folks > have to deprecate the noise from XML syntax, and then the DOM can follow. > ... > So, I guess my answer is just as cowardly as John Cowan's explanation of why > the InfoSet still represents the noise :~) Yep ... nobody willing to take a stance about policy, beyond "enable all of them". That's a symptom of organizations at certain points in their growth; I've seen it (too) many times! There are much worse process outcomes, but I'll still prefer better ones. > Seriously, folks ... to paraphrase Clemenceu and Gen. Jack D. Ripper, "XML > is too important to be left to the experts." The trouble with most people > who work on these specs is not that they're stupid, but that they know too > damn much about how this stuff works (and worked in SGML), how it really is > useful under some circumstances, and how to ignore it when it's not useful. > If y'all want simplicity, sanity, layering, modularity, etc. you're going to > have to collectively put some feet to the fire, or maybe vote with your own > feet. I think there's a certain feeling that neither of those options seems to be particularly viable with respect to W3C. (Consider that upcoming workshop addressing the fact that lots of XML-ish specs don't seem to layer cleanly.) On the other hand, I did (re)submit feedback this morning to the DOM WG that noisy data representations shouldn't be the default, which is as much as most of us are in a position to do. - Dave
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