[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Character Entities: An XML Core WG View
> The question is, why should the privilege of being inconsistent (e.g. using > the same names for distinct characters) be allowed? That's a good question, for which different people might have different answers, and it's the sort of question that I would have expected to see addressed in the Core WG document, rather than the current document text which merely states the obvious fact that you can define entities in DTDs. > But character entity names are > all drawn from the same Unicode character space. I have yet to see a > principled defense for supporting inconsistency here. I think that either you have to support inconsistency, or provide a mechanism to ensure consistency, or document that the problem exists but that the user just needs to be careful and wil get no help from the system. I don't see the Core WG document doing any of these things. > Why not the IETF, or ISO, or OASIS? Because XML is housed at W3C. OASIS effectively has a maping (in its docbook area) ISO/unicode effectively has a mapping (your original one) which is available from the unicode site and other places. W3C has two mappings (XHTML and MathML). For political reasons if nothing else I don't see how an IETF (say) mapping could be anything more than yet another incompatible set. If the W3C coordinated a unified mapping and MathML and XHTML used it (and Docbook followed suit when Norm switched hats from XML Core to Docbook) then the man in the street might get the impression that there was at last some progress and a unified set. It doesn't have to be the current members of XML core do the work if you are already over stretched, but I think it has to be a W3C Recommendation from the XML Activity. David _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet delivered through the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service. For further information visit http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp or alternatively call Star Internet for details on the Virus Scanning Service.
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