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PIs

>7.6 (4th bullet)
>PIs don't make sense on a network. Their use should be restricted to the
>prolog, where they could be useful in setting up the parser (e.g. to
>identify a relevant SGML declaration). The thought of allowing a processing
>instruction within a document instance that is going to be displayable by
>many different plug-ins scares the hell out of me.

Hmm, I think I'm missing something.  In SGML, a PI can be freely
ignored by any application... what harm is done in supporting PI's as a place
to put, well, Processing Instructions?  In the full knowledge, of course, that
nothing downstream can be guaranteed to understand or act on them, without
prior arrangement.  But such prior arrangements are common.  Could you
elaborate, Martin?

>8(c) 
>If PIs are retained then PIC should be changed so that it is not > as this
>is required for many processing instructions. (An alternative may be to
>allow a character reference to be entered within a PI, but this would make
>XML incompatible with SGML.)

Good idea.  I've heard this one bubble up in half a dozen different
contexts of late, so it's not just us.  Shouldn't be hard to come up with
something, e.g. ?> or %>.

Cheers, Tim Bray
tbray@textuality.com http://www.textuality.com/ +1-604-488-1167
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