Re: XML, HTML, SGML, life, the universe, and everything

At 5:36 AM 11/11/96, Charles F. Goldfarb wrote:
>On Sun, 10 Nov 1996 22:14:33 -0500, "Eve L. Maler" <elm@arbortext.com> wrote:
>
>>At 07:47 PM 11/10/96 GMT, Charles F. Goldfarb wrote:
>>>On Fri, 08 Nov 1996 12:17:15 -0800, Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote:
>>
>>>...
>>
>>>>Existing SGML tools can, if they're compliant, read XML today modulo
>>>>*only* overlapping enumerated attribute values and perhaps some
>>>>mild inconsistencies as to which RE's are where.
>>>
>>>The former makes XML *not* conforming SGML.
>
>You didn't address this point, Eve.

Because we have all agreed to bite the bullet here. SGML'97 has the
opportunity to fix this problem for SGML, but we can't wait.

>Conforming SGML means that any conforming system will produce the same ESIS. At
>present, an XML document is not conforming SGML.

This is not true. The ESIS definition is not normative text. The standard
itself is hopelessly ambiguous on the subject of what is and is not to be
produced by an SGML processor, defining only a syntactic acceptance
procedure (Exoterica's whitepaper on whitespace is quite informative in
this regard). You may _wish_ that the ESIS was normative text, but it is
_not_.

>>>> XML is a subset of SGML
>True, but it is the parsing that determines conformance, and you haven't
>refuted
>my point: XML at present is not conforming SGML.

But I have. Except for the attribute value thing. But that is still
impossible to justify in the absence of minimization, and you have already
declared that you would be willing to fix in in SGML '97. If we lead by a
year, what's the harm?

   -- David

RE delenda est.
I am not a number. I am an undefined character.
_________________________________________
David Durand              dgd@cs.bu.edu  \  david@dynamicDiagrams.com
Boston University Computer Science        \  Sr. Analyst
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Received on Monday, 11 November 1996 15:52:25 UTC