Re: An interesting angle on types in XSLT 2.0?

Andrew Watt wrote:

> If a new class of errors introduced by XML is "good", why is a new class of
> errors introduced by types in XSLT 2.0 "bad"?

I think the succinct answer is that 'errors introduced by XML' (which as a
practical matter means well-formedness errors which halt a parser) go to the
heart of what document content *is* as expressed in XML syntax, while
validation errors fall in the distinctly more peripheral area of how document
content is used by a particular application (or, if you prefer, you can
substitute 'interpreted' or 'expected' for 'used'). That distinction is
fundamental:  the separation of well-formedness from validity is
philosophically the salient point on which XML departs from its SGML ancestry.
Therefore proliferation in the forms of validation which might be applied to
XML (though each naturally introduces new errors of its own) is on the whole a
good thing. Forcing any such class of errors so intimately into the core of XML
that the fundamental distinction of well-formedness from validation is lost or
obscured is transgression upon XML itself.


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