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RE: XUL Compact Syntax Study Now Online - Is XML too hard for

• To: "'Hunsberger, Peter'" <Peter.Hunsberger@S...>
• Subject: RE: XUL Compact Syntax Study Now Online - Is XML too hard for Aunt Trudie?
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 10:09:35 -0500
• Cc: xml-dev@l...

Yes.  The SGML Declaration is not easy to master without 
serious chops.  It is also vague in some areas.  But 
fixing the values for XML and then pushing it aside 
were considered major gains for SGML On the Web.  Now 
we seem to be reopening the can of worms, so how long 
would we do this before we reinvent the Declaration? 
As John Cowan noted offline, making the SGML Decl do 
the job would be pretty difficult but that makes me 
even more leery of alternatives, particularly ones 
that resurrect the "Is XML Too Hard?" argument to 
support their adoption.

No one will get rid of alternative syntaxes.  We should 
be careful what we call XML or introduce to the toolkit 
box if by doing so we start yetAnotherTrend and it has 
hidden costs across the ecosystem.  As the saying goes 

<!DOCTYPE offTopicAndInappropriate PUBLIC "-//LenWorld//DTD SGMLThang //EN"
[
<!ELEMENT offTopicAndInappropriate - o (#PCDATA) >
]>
<offtopicAndInappropriate>
"Be conservative in what you produce and liberal in what you accept."  
Someone should teach that to the American electorate before November.

len


From: Hunsberger, Peter [mailto:Peter.Hunsberger@S...]

Bullard, Claude L (Len) <clbullar@i...> writes:
> 
> So resurrect the SGML Declaration and enable everyone 
> to declare compact syntaxes for the application profiles 
> in the standard way.  Why not have the compact syntaxes 
> interoperate as well?

+10 ;-)

I still find myself reverting to defining new Word styles in the old GML
style I first learned before SGML came about.

> If we are to brandish big pointy sticks, maybe they 
> should be standard pointy sticks.  Or are all of the 
> arguments that led to the development of the SGML 
> subset suddenly moot in a trendy way?
 
Not sure the SGML declaration is a big pointy stick?  More like a
amorphous smothering blob that's really hard to get a handle on?


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