RE: KISS (was: Parameter entity references in WF docs)

I think we should define what we mean with "use" of DTD. Will information be modeled in this form or will the DTD merely act as "map" for receivers of information? The XML usage will probably be the latter.

PEs have always been a convenient tool for multiple use of fragments as has been pointed out by Eve Maler, Terry Allen and Martin Bryan. But, the fact that XML has (unfortunately) discarded the "and"-connector disables XML to (efficiently) express  many of today's models anyway. Another drawback was pointed out by Martin Pike  in connection with the MathML:

Already the inability to use name groups to declare multiple elements with the same content model makes the DTD much larger and more awkward to read and maintain than its SGML equivalent

XML models will have to be rendered from SGML-DTD models in those cases, and the PEs and other stuff could be resolved in that transformation. The XML-DTD will also most probably be generated out of the WF-document in many cases.

The necessity of PEs is related to the role of the DTD.

Christian Wallgren

Received on Tuesday, 3 June 1997 11:51:10 UTC