Re: Request for Erratum to XML 1.0 and 1.1 Specs

On Tuesday, October 21, 2003, 10:48:24 AM, Rick wrote:


RJ> Request for Erratum to XML 1.0 and 1.1 Specs
RJ> ----------------------------------------------
RJ> Rick Jelliffe, ricko@topologi.com, 2003-10-21


RJ> I request the XML Working Group please consider the following erratum
RJ> to XML 1.0 which should also apply to XML 1.1.

I understand what your intent is ans why you suggest this at this
time, but:

RJ> "A non-validating processor may, at user option, imply definitions for
RJ> all the character entities defined by HTML 4[1]. A document or entity
RJ> for which definitions are implied is not well-formed. The processor must
RJ> report a non-fatal error. NOTE: The document is 'not well-formed but
RJ> processed'. Reliance on this feature by specifications is deprecated;
RJ> this option may be withdrawn at some
RJ> future time should it prove dangerous."

Or simply not added in the first place.

In my view, adding another XML conformance level below well formed is
not an erratum. Its a major change to the language.

Encouraging XHTML (and MathML) processors to deal with non well formed
documents strikes me as highly dangerous and damaging; it could kill
off the already precarious position of client-side XML and relegate
XML to back-end processing only while perpetuating the 'non wellformed
but looks a bit like XML' mess. Pages purporting to be XHTML are
already the second highest type of non wellformed document. Lets not
encourage this practice.


-- 
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org

Received on Tuesday, 21 October 2003 09:11:36 UTC