XML Conformance Levels [Was: ERB Decisions of March 26th]

Jon Bosak writes:
> | Tim Bray writes:
> | > Yes, allow PUBLIC: Kimber, DeRose, Sperberg-McQueen, Maler, Hollander
> | >  No, no PUBLIC ID: Paoli, Sharpe, Magliery, Clark, Bray, Bosak
> | >
> | >So in this draft, no public IDs.  It should be voted that *every person*
> | >on the No side would change their vote to Yes if there was an agreed-on
> | >resolution mechanism for PUBLIC identifiers.
> 
> It should be noted that all the NO votes were "no, not ready for this
> particular draft, we need to agree on a resolution mechanism before we
> can include public identifiers."  There is general agreement that XML
> will have public identifiers, but there has to be general agreement on
> a resolution mechanism before it shows up in the spec.  XML 1.0 has a
> long way to go before it achieves "recommended" status.  This feature
> just isn't cooked yet.

Jon,

Thanks for that note -- it makes me feel a lot better about this 
decision.

BTW, on talking with Bill Smith about the variance in needs between people
like Tim and Eliot's needs, what's the likelihood of defining conformance
levels for XML? This would allow a lightwight app to have, for example:

   XML-CORE:  Level 1 (core of XML)
   XML-LINK:  Level 1 (basic linking ala HTML)
   XML-STYLE: Level 0 (no stylesheets)
    
while an intermediate app might declare:

   XML-CORE:  Level 2  (charent and literal ENTITY decls, etc.)
   XML-LINK:  Level 2  (add a few more interesting link types)
   XML-STYLE: Level 1  (dsssl-o or similar)

and the mother of all XML apps:

   XML-CORE:  Level 3  (ext. text ENTITIES, PUBLIC, DELEGATE support, etc.)
   XML-LINK:  Level 3  (full linking; ~TEI, etc.)
   XML-STYLE: Level 2  (dsssl)

We'd also need versioning, so the PI for XML would contain an indicator
such as XML-LINK="L2V1.0.1". We could define the conformance level of 0
as non-conforming, and base the concept of 'well-formed' upon a sensible
conformance declaration.

Just some ideas really, not wishing to start a new flame war.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim, SGML Grease Monkey                    <altheim@eng.sun.com>
Member of Technical Staff, Tools Development & Support
Sun Microsystems, 2550 Garcia Ave., MS UMPK17-102, Menlo Park, CA 94043 USA
         "Give a monkey the tools and he'll build a typewriter."

Received on Wednesday, 26 March 1997 19:21:31 UTC