- From: John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
- Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2012 15:25:18 -0400
- To: David Lee <David.Lee@marklogic.com>
- Cc: James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>, "stephengreenubl@gmail.com" <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>, Maik Stührenberg <maik.stuehrenberg@uni-bielefeld.de>, "public-microxml@w3.org" <public-microxml@w3.org>
David Lee scripsit:
> I have always (without asking) considered the word choice of "processor"
> to be intentionally chosen to NOT imply "parser".
The XML Rec says:
[Definition: A software module called an XML processor is used
to read XML documents and provide access to their content and
structure.] [Definition: It is assumed that an XML processor
is doing its work on behalf of another module, called the
application.] This specification describes the required behavior
of an XML processor in terms of how it must read XML data and
the information it must provide to the application.
That makes it the parser. Indeed, the word "parser" only appears three
times in the 5th Edition, all of them arguably errors for "processor".
> Isnt "XSLT" considered a "processor" even though it is not a "parser" ?
Yes, but it's not an XML processor. XSLT 2.0 says:
[Definition: The software responsible for transforming source
trees into result trees using an XSLT stylesheet is referred to
as the processor. This is sometimes expanded to XSLT processor
to avoid any confusion with other processors, for example an
XML processor.]
> Maybe that is why there is no requirement for "processors" to do things
> like report elements.
Nah, it was just an oversight that's never been considered important
enough to fix.
> Maybe it would be good to break from tradition and make the words
> explicitly different so nincompoops like myself can tell them apart.
We have. We now use "parser" instead of "processor", like the rest of the
industry. I don't know exactly why "processor" was adopted; presumably
because an SGML parser does a lot besides parsing. The same is true of an
XML processor, to a lesser degree. MicroXML parsers really do just parse.
> As for Fortran Vs C ... you totally lost me but thats fine.
Yeah, it was a strained example. The wc example is better.
--
I marvel at the creature: so secret and John Cowan
so sly as he is, to come sporting in the pool cowan@ccil.org
before our very window. Does he think that http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Men sleep without watch all night?
Received on Monday, 1 October 2012 19:25:42 UTC