Undocumented, undiscussed substantive changes in the 10 May draft

Hello,

The 10 May 2022 version of the Invisible XML specification has been
redrafted with new language that is, I believe, a significant step
backwards in terms of readability and understandability.

For example, in the 7 April draft, under rules, we find:

  A mark is one of @, ^ or -, and indicates whether the item so marked
  will be serialised as an attribute (@), an element with its children
  (^), which is the default, or only its children (-).

In the 10 May draft, it reads:

  A mark is one of ^, @ or -, and indicates whether the item so marked
  will be serialised as a structured element with its children (^) which
  is the default, as unstructured data in an attribute (@), or deleted,
  so that only its children are serialized (-).

That’s just one example of a pervasive move away from concrete
descriptions of the XML serialization to favor wishy-washy (and
undefined) concepts such as “structured” and “unstructured”. Those words
do not rise to the level of terms of art that can be used in a technical
specification without definition.

I object to this change having been silently made with no corresponding
issue or discussion. This is not merely an editorial change, this
represents a departure in technical clarity and perhaps even underlying
meaning from the previous drafts.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

--
Norm Tovey-Walsh
Saxonica