Issue #3

This comment was added to the issue tracker regarding issue #3 (XML)
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Originally, the intention was that XML syntax could support both the  
interoperability and the extensibility CSFs.
1. Interoperability is enhanced by adopting XML because there are  
many tools that can parse and process XML to some extent. For  
example, XSLT might be used to process RIF data sets. If the RIF  
adopted a non-XML syntax then this kind of tooling flexiblity would  
be lost.
2. The extensibility CSF is supported by XML in a relatively weak  
sense. Part of the semantics of XML is the default assumption that  
any tool processing an XML structure that it did not directly  
understand should ignore that structure. This represents a strategy  
for extensibility that the RIF could adopt. (Not all specifications  
do adopt this: SOAP 2.0 with the 'must understand' flag directly  
contradicts this aspect of XML semantics.
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Frank

Received on Monday, 25 September 2006 02:39:40 UTC