- From: David G. Durand <dgd@cs.bu.edu>
- Date: Sun, 3 Nov 1996 23:55:05 -0500
- To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
This note starts with one point, and records my reasoning as I abandoned the point again. (Maybe it's not rhetorically sensible, but that's the way it happened, so I've been thinking about this some more, and watching the discussion, and I think that we maybe should allow the minimization flags, _if_ we explicitly label them as an SGML compatibility feature. This explicit labelling may be a hopbby horse of mine, but I think it is something we must do for the negative requirements we are already making (like disallowing -- in comments). Not being honest about these feature would be a terrible mistake. Of course, adding something to the grammar that is not already there is more intrusive than removing something that _could_ be there. No XML document will be invalid when parsed with a parser that fails to implement the comment restriction, but an XML document that puts - - in its element declarations would be invalid to a parser that skipped implementing SGML-compatibility features. It's a much stronger requirement on processors to add something to the language for compatibility, than to remove it for the same reason -- even people who don't care about compatibility have to implement added-features they don't need, whereas not implementing restrictions you don't care about is easier and safer. I guess we're back to eliminating them. I'm not sure it's worth adding syntax, especially given the number of changes that many DTDs will have to undergo, anyway. -- David RE delenda est. I am not a number. I am an undefined character. _________________________________________ David Durand dgd@cs.bu.edu \ david@dynamicDiagrams.com Boston University Computer Science \ Sr. Analyst http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/ \ Dynamic Diagrams --------------------------------------------\ http://dynamicDiagrams.com/ MAPA: mapping for the WWW \__________________________
Received on Sunday, 3 November 1996 23:49:56 UTC