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RE: SAX characters event and external entities

• To: 'David Megginson' <david@m...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: SAX characters event and external entities
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 08:46:57 -0600

Why?  

The typical use of an SGML Declaration was in the 
documentation of the application language.  That is, 
for 28001 or 87269, the declaration was included 
as part of the specification and the implementor 
of the local SGML processing system used it to 
set up that system.  Granted, most of that went 
straight to the parser and the publishing system 
saw nothing of the result except insofar as what 
the parser accepted, but a nightmare to manage? 
Not in my experience.

We weren't pushing this stuff across an open network.
We were delivering 9-track tapes or we were creating 
early WORM discs with both the rendered file (typically 
image bitmaps) and the SGML files for archive.
 
Comparisons of the SGML experience and the XML experience 
just aren't that relevant; different media, different 
production scenarios, different publishing tools, 
and different personnel.  SGML experts were exactly 
that; no desperate hackers need apply.

len

From: David Megginson [mailto:david@m...]

SGML gave limits a bad name because they were so ridiculously low by
default (eight-character names spring to mind), and SGML declarations
were a nightmare to manage in any real-world processing and
interchange situation.  

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