Re: Let's get some principles nailed down

Noah Mendelsohn writes:
>CP3Revised:  Designers of applications SHOULD when practical define 
>semantics for XML applications in terms of the infoset, as opposed to 
>depending on serial forms.  When using serial forms, any two documents 
>that have the same infoset SHOULD be treated as semantically
equivalent. 

Ouch.  That opens up whole new cans of worms.

Personally, I don't see the Infoset as having much if anything to do
with XML, and definitions based on the Infoset rather than serial forms
sound like a wonderful excuse for organizations to define specs based on
"open" XML and then turn around and use proprietary binary
serializations.

If the TAG really wants to go that route, maybe it's time to just chuck
the misfortune of XML serialization and any notion of "marking up" as a
foundation of markup.

To come back to the original CP3:
>> CP3. When using XML, designers SHOULD NOT introduce 
>> syntax constraints beyond those involved in the 
>> definition of XML.

I've heard fairly regularly of cases where the internal subset is
banned, if not the entire DOCTYPE declaration.  Processing instructions
also seem like a popular bugaboo in some parts, notably the W3C.

Subsets of XML do seem to be proposed (and even used) on a regular
basis.  See, for example:
http://www.simonstl.com/articles/cxmlspec.txt


-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org

Received on Friday, 22 November 2002 13:34:59 UTC