RE: [xml-proc-profiles] - More minimal profiles

Thank you for your response.
I believe I must have not explained myself well enough for your later
responses.
I am not proposing ANY "subset" which cannot be parsed by existing XML
tools.

All documents in any profile (subset or whatever) would be parsable  by
tools in a higher compliance level.

However I do see your other point, that this would encourage implements to
implement *tools* that could not even parse the currently defined "minimum"
XML.
( although the documents they DO parse would be validly parsed by tools that
parsed larger subsets).

I can understand the unwillingness to do this.   However argue that its done
often "in the wild".  In fact I can point to many papers at Extreme XML and
Balisage that do precisely this.    By providing a space (socially in some
ways, by adding it to this spec) could encourage that and foster adoption of
efficient implementations of parsers into worlds where non exist, or are
'shamefully hidden' because they are not blessed by the W3C because they
don't implement features that their space doesn't require.

I could see the side where W3C would object to this.
I propose that it is in their best interest to embrace it instead.

But in any case thank you for the consideration.



----------------------------------------
David A. Lee
dlee@calldei.com
http://www.xmlsh.org


-----Original Message-----
From: public-xml-processing-model-comments-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-xml-processing-model-comments-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of
Henry S. Thompson
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 5:16 AM
To: David Lee
Cc: public-xml-processing-model-comments@w3.org
Subject: Re: [xml-proc-profiles] - More minimal profiles


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Speaking only for myself, and before the WG has had a chance to
discuss your suggestion, I'm very much in two minds about this:

1) You're absolutely right in identifying a need, and I'm very glad
that you suggested this, so that's good;

2) It would amount to a subsetting of XML w/o having been chartered to
do that, outside the XML Core WG, so that's bad.

I don't mean to imply that the problem is basically a bureaucratic
one, but rather that what seems at first a simple matter of profiling
for limited purposes becomes a much more complex matter.

The difference between profile and subset also rears its ugly head:
profiles don't change the language, depending on a profile doesn't
change the fact that an implementer has to conform to the XML
spec. itself.

But subsets, and that's really what your talking about, allow and even
implicitly encourage an implementer to fall short of conformance. . .

We risk losing what Liam Quin calls The XML Promise:  all XML tools
can process any XML document.

ht
- -- 
       Henry S. Thompson, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
      10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh EH8 9AB, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
                Fax: (44) 131 651-1426, e-mail: ht@inf.ed.ac.uk
                       URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
 [mail from me _always_ has a .sig like this -- mail without it is forged
spam]
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Received on Thursday, 9 December 2010 13:17:41 UTC