[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: XML Redux
Stephen Green scripsit: > For example the parser might need to have two modes, > one lax and one strict, to allow on one hand the parsing of the XML as text > ignoring any encoding 'errors' (like XML5, say) so that at least the parser > can read in the XML for certain uses (like correction of such 'errors' by > character escaping/replacing, etc) and on the other hand something which > focuses on parsing 'valid' XML. I'm not attacking *you* here, Stephen, but I do want to attack the widespread meme that HTML5-style formats and parsers are simpler or easier to use. HTML5 is in fact strictly defined: it permits only a single parse for any given string of characters, and often its parse is *not* easy to understand unless you have grasped the detailed mental model of HTML5. Fortunately, there is a smaller and easier-to-understand subset, valid HTML5, which allows many fewer possibilities, and it's easy to set up even smaller subsets that are as expressive as full HTML5 but have a yet simpler model of syntax. Lax parsers are also more complicated than strict ones. A strict parser sees an error, it just gives up. But a lax parser has to provide an error recovery strategy that makes sense to the user, which is a hard problem dating back to the beginning of "automatic programming" (i.e. writing code in something other than binary notation). MicroLark, for example, provides a lax parser of MicroXML, but its recovery strategy is intentionally naive (mostly "revert to character data") and I would never put it forward as a standard method of error recovery. Doing so feels too much like designing a kludge. If a kludge becomes commonly used, as HTML5 parsing has, it makes sense to try to standardize its workings post hoc, but trying to decide in advance what errors users will make and what their mental model will expect to find strikes me as a hopeless undertaking. -- So they play that [tune] on John Cowan their fascist banjos, eh? cowan@ccil.org --Great-Souled Sam http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] |
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|