Re: Couldn't XML allow and ignore omitted tag minimization

(A second person has taken me to task offline for the statement quoted
below, so I'd better acknowledge that I was overlooking legal SGML
practice.)

| >I am made uneasy by the thought that a legal DTD would then be stating
| >specifically something that would not be true in XML, namely that
| >certain omissions were allowed when, in fact, they would not be.
| 
| SGML with OMITAG NO permits but does not require the omitted tag
| minimization parameter.  If it is present it is ignored.  Do you
| believe that in SGML you will "be stating specifically something
| that would not be true" in SGML under these circumstances?  This is
| solely to prevent needing multiple copies of the same DTD.  Why
| should the same analysis and rationale not apply to XML.

Yes, as I replied offline to someone else who made the same point, my
quarrel turns out to be with the original design decision.  I wouldn't
have agreed with it then, either.  If you push this rationale very far
you end up with the position that *all* omission parameters are bogus,
and that if you allow omission at all you might as well just mark
everything possible "O O".  I thank Eliot Kimber for this observation,
which at first freaked me out but which I'm now beginning to see the
logic of, though I still don't like it.  To me it's a demonstration by
reductio ad horrendum that you don't want to allow tag minimization.

(By the way, I think that the people arguing in favor of Paul's
original request have made a pretty good case for it.)

Jon

Received on Thursday, 6 March 1997 01:49:03 UTC