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Re: "Introducing MicroXML, Part 1: Explore the basicprinciples

• From: John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
• To: BillClare3@aol.com
• Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2012 13:59:20 -0400

BillClare3@aol.com scripsit:

> 2.  It seems clear  that this not meant as a markup language.  

On the contrary, James says explicitly that one of the virtues of MicroXML
is that if you take a document that is both well-formed MicroXML and valid
against a suitable schema, you guarantee that it is also valid HTML5.
Such a document is both processable by all the facilities available
for XML documents, and guaranteed to be renderable by an HTML5 browser
without further down-translation.

I de-emphasized this use case in my SD Times interview, but it's a
perfectly realistic one.

> .  Fundamental simplicity is  achievable by eliminating attributes
> (with greater potential for simplifying  schema), simplifying relative
> URI’s, and severely sub-setting the characters  sets allowed (except
> where needed for URI’ s).  This simplicity would also greatly
> simplify  schema validation.  But I suspect the simplicity route is
> already  lost to JSON and to the myriad tools that generate and edit
> XML for neophytes.  Also, such radical surgery raises  issues of what
> can still be called XML.

Indeed.  I have attempted to position MicroXML as complementary to JSON
and interoperable with it, rather than a competitor of any sort.

But the complexities of Unicode are for the most part the complexities
of the real world of writing as it exists.  If we fix a single encoding
(UTF-8), and we strongly recommend a single normalization form (NFC),
then the complexity that remains reflects the complex history of writing
systems in all their hair.

As for schema validation, my intention with MicroLark is to package an
Examplotron validator with it.  Schema languages don't get much simpler
than Examplotron, and it is defined in terms of RELAX NG, so its
design is more sophisticated than it looks.

-- 
But that, he realized, was a foolish            John Cowan
thought; as no one knew better than he          cowan@ccil.org
that the Wall had no other side.                http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        --Arthur C. Clarke, "The Wall of Darkness"

• References:
  • Re: "Introducing MicroXML, Part 1: Explore the basic principles of ...
    • From: BillClare3@aol.com