[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Postel's law, exceptions
At 12:21 AM -0500 1/14/04, Michael Champion wrote: >The best statement I know of this point of view is Uche Ogbuji's >"Serenity Through Markup" piece >http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=6758 " As documents move >between systems, trust the remote system's ability to interpret the >document to meet its own local needs. This is known as the principle >of loose coupling, and is reminiscent of the idea of late binding in >programming theory. In the technology sphere, the idea is that an >XML document used in a transaction between multiple systems need not >always build in all possible aspects of the combined systems. Source >systems design documents to meet their needs, while the target >system interprets them to its own needs. ... [This can be done with] >pipelines of data, where a document starts out in one form and ends >up in one suited for a different environment." Sean McGrath has >written a lot about the pipeline approach too, but all I can find >are PPT presentations. This is also the point of view taken by Walter Perry. However, what you're missing here is the assumption (certainly in Walter's case, and I think in Uche's and Sean's as well) that the documents are well-formed. They are willing to process invalid documents. However, well-formedness is their minimum requirement. Although the Atom folks frequently confuse their language, what they seem to be asking for is the option to pass around malformed documents. I have no objection if they want to pass around invalid documents that do not actually satisfy the Atom specification. Indeed I can conceive several very good reasons for doing exactly that. However, passing around malformed documents is much nastier, and should be prohibited. -- Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo@m... Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003) http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA
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