Re[2]: Clark's commentary

On Monday, January 07, 2002, 8:02:52 PM, David wrote:

DO> Here we get into the excellent discussion of what features are being used.
DO> Sorry Norm, but your iotas don't quite match my iotas.  Which isn't
DO> surprising though ;-)

Which was Norms point about the *reason* for no other changes..

DO> A nice facet of xml (2.0 = 1.0 - DTDs - PIs + namespaces + infoset + xml
DO> base) is that I think it more closely mimics standard practice, for example
DO> SOAP 1.2.

Well, (as the XML processing workshop clearly demonstrated) it depends
o *whose* definitio of standard practice, commonly used features, etc.

DO> This is an excellent example of architectural refactoring that often happens
DO> in software.  SOAP 1.2 had to invent the equivalent of XML 2.0 for what it
DO> needed.  Now it turns out that other people could use the same definitions.
DO> So let's refactor the XML 2.0 stuff into a coherent piece, then SOAP WG
DO> doesn't have to document it/maintain it.  And other specs can use it rather
DO> than copying the verbage from soap 1.2.

Which, as you observed, gets into the excellent discussion of what
features are being used. Speaking for what *I* see as 'everyone using'
it includes some of DTDs (for ID and for entities - not just character
entities either) - PI (one, for linking stylesheets since that is the
one and only approved method), namespaces (plus multitudionous hacks
to pretend that DTDs understand namespaces) and xml base. And XLink.

Although I do agree that the proper place for infoset is the XML
specification.

If PIs went, would there be an XLink arcrole defined for stylesheet
linkage and the assorted title, media etc attributes (and if so in
what namespace) or would there be attempt n+1 to resurrect packaging
rather than hanging everything in a compound document off one,
priveledged (or should that be burdened) document?

Bringing this back to the topic of discussion, it does clearly show
that factoring a problem into small easy pieces moves, rather than
removes, the effort of figuring out how all the pieces work together.
It also demonstrates that changes in one piece affect the importance
or content of other pieces.

-- 
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org

Received on Tuesday, 8 January 2002 17:58:59 UTC