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Strategies for a lowly XML document

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Strategies for a lowly XML document
• From: Jonathan Borden <jborden@m...>
• Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 11:01:56 -0500
• Sender: lgp@c...

What is a lowly XML document to do?

What is a consumer to do with an XML document?

Hopefully you have an idea, but suppose a document lands on your desk
and you are assigned the task of doing something with it.

1. Try to read it, does it render itself in a browser?
    1.1 If you recognize it, deal with it appropriately otherwise...
2. Ask the entity who sent it.
3. Try to find a piece of code that can help.
    3.1 Look at the root element. Does it have a namespace?
    3.1.1 Look into the namespace URI, does it say what to do with the
element, or provide pointers to any code or schemas that help?
    3.2 Is there a processing instruction linking the document to an
external description
    3.2.1 Read this description, or use it to find some code or schema
that 'understands' the document
4. Call your boss.

Is this about right?

Looking at 3 in particular, RDDL in its current form assists the task of
3.1 and a RDDL PI would assist the task of 3.2. Would this be useful?

<?rddl-doctype href="http://example.org/some-rddl-description.html" ?>

I've heard both sides, some people desire "document type" based
processing, others don't. Is there any harm in providing for this
_optional_ PI?

Jonathan

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