Re: D.4 parameter entities?

At 2:10 PM 10/24/96, Michael Sperberg-McQueen wrote:
>On 30 October 1996, the ERB will vote to decide the following
>question.  A straw poll indicates the question needs further
>discussion in the work group.
>
>D.4 Should XML allow parameter entities and parameter-entity
>references?
>  * D.4 a.  internal parameter entities?

Since we are not allowing any new convenience features in DTDs (like mix-in
markup), we will continue to require the old parameter-entity methods for
creating extensions. This is a requirement, now, in my opinion.

>  * D.4 b.  external parameter entities?

I think that this is far worse for processors than external text entities,
because they must be followed for the DTD to be useful (i.e. we cannot
remove the serial dependencies as we have for external text entities).

   While it is sometimes useful to have external parameter entities, for
most projects one can live without them. On balance we should drop this, or
reconsider it in 2.0 in light of how hard it was to live without (and for
how many people it was hard).


RE delenda est.
I am not a number. I am an undefined character.
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Received on Friday, 25 October 1996 10:18:46 UTC