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Re: Number of active public XML schemas

• To: "'xml-dev'" <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: Number of active public XML schemas
• From: Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@r...>
• Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 22:06:18 -0800
• In-reply-to: <20041101202600.LUOT13844.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@Turtle>
• References: <20041101202600.LUOT13844.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@Turtle>
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Michael Kay wrote:

>>Or because they [DTDs] are easier to understand, 
> 
> I have yet to see a DTD of more than trivial size that is not totally
> impenetrable. And fragile too, if you are rash enough to make a one line
> change that breaks an entire edifice of parameter entities and conditional
> sections.

 From personal experience, I'd have to say that complex DTDs are 
slightly more penetrable than XSDs. As a user, I'm usually just trying 
to find out one or two things and I can do this by chasing entities 
through the DTD with a text editor. I give up completely when faced with 
a complex XSD document. (And in neither case can I get an overall picture.)

Which raises an interesting question: Should there be a non-XML syntax 
for XSDs like there is for RELAX NG? It's always been an article of 
faith for me that schemas should be written in XML, if for no other 
reason than not having to write another parser. But one does have to 
wonder...

-- Ron

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