Re: Re PEs

Michael responds:
| >for SGML DTDs increases without bound.  If I need to maintain
| >my DTD in SGML even when I'm going to output XML, why do I
| >need an XML DTD?  Would it not be simpler to eliminate DTDs
| 
| I don't know about you; I need it because I would like to maintain my
| documents in XML, rather than maintaining them in Full SGML and
| down-translating at publication time.  That means I need an XML DTD for
| validation, etc., all the things Len mentioned.

It might be easier to build a reliable SGML>XML translation tool,
use only SGML DTDs, produce SGML instances, and filter to XML.

| If PEs were lost, then XML would become definitively a language for
| network publication only, not suitable for the range of other activities
| (including document maintenance) that our second design goal seems to me
| to cover.  That would be a loss not just for those of us who would like
| XML to be a useful markup language for work other than publication, but
| also for the Web as a whole.  If XML is useful for serious work, then
| documents can be in XML in their archival form, and publication on the
| Web requires nothing more than copying files into the appropriate
| directories.  If XML were crippled by losing parameter entities (and
| external text entities, if some people have their way), then publication
| on the Web would continue to require down-translation, as it does now.
| That would be a lost opportunity.

Agreed entirely; I would be inclined to down-translate instance-to-instance.

| >The question "why not eliminate DTDs from XML entirely" is a
| >serious one, as are all my questions, and I expect a response
| >to it from the SGML ERB.
| 
| This is not to be taken as an official response from the ERB.

Understood, but it is a response from an ERB member, and that's all
I ask for.  Thanks and good luck.


Best regards,
  Terry Allen    Electronic Publishing Consultant    tallen[at]sonic.net
                   http://www.sonic.net/~tallen/
    Davenport and DocBook:  http://www.ora.com/davenport/index.html
          T.A. at Passage Systems:  terry.allen[at]passage.com

Received on Tuesday, 10 June 1997 23:35:22 UTC