Re: A28: syntax of markup declarations?

Tim Bray wrote:

> If this is true, we're wasting our time.  The main benefit of XML is that it
> might well expand - immensely - the number of people who are using descriptive
> markup and standardized formats, instead of presentational/mongrel markup and
> proprietary formats.  I personally plan to recommend XML, vociferously, to the
> Web publishing population, when they hit the HTML brick wall, and the document
> management profession, when they get tired of dealing with documents that are
> opaque proprietary bit blobs.
> 
> XML is the easy on-ramp to SGML.
> 
> If we go on preaching to the existing SGML choir, why bother doing this?
> 

Tim has stated the real issue quite plainly here.

I'll go a bit further on this topic though and suggest that XML doesn't need any 
markup declarations - in an intitial version. We have stated that a desirable 
goal for XML is that browsers be able to properly display documents without the 
need for markup declarations. We can assure achieving that goal by eliminating 
markup declarations from XML 1.0.

If we allow markup declarations, there will be a great temptation to use them 
and we will not achieve the goal of DTD-less processing. Markup declarations 
should become a part of XML after initial accepatance in order to support 
validation, etc.

Received on Tuesday, 8 October 1996 13:34:31 UTC