Re: Comments on XPP draft o2 24 January 2013

On Oct 30, 2013, at 4:40 AM, Henry S. Thompson wrote:
> ...
> 
>> The absence of any passage in XPP where a possible distinction
>> between "reading" and "processing" external declarations makes a
>> difference also suggests (alas) that XPP provides no way to describe
>> the fairly common class of non-validating DTD-aware processors,
>> which process external entity declarations and read other external
>> declarations but do not use (or process) them.
> 
> I'm now confused by what _you_ mean by 'process'.  The paragraph in
> the XML spec. which is relevant is, I believe, [1].  I read that
> paragraph as saying that what in my experience is the common class of
> processors (including both RXP and Saxon in their default
> configuration) do is read _and_ process all external declarations, as
> defined in [1].  Can you clarify?  Our specific goal in XPP in the
> external declarations profile was precisely to give a name to this
> class.
> 
> ht
> 
> [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/xml/#dt-use-mdecl

I feel like a poker player being asked to show his cards by someone
who does not want to show theirs.

If you tell me what you believe the words "read" and "process" mean
in the XPP spec, I'll tell you want I meant by them in the paragraph you
quote above.  Otherwise, we seem to be at an impasse.  I will book it
as progress that you now seem to agree that the words are not always
so obvious in their meaning that no possible misunderstandings can
result from failure to define them; I must only hope that you are also
willing to countenance the idea that this can be the case when the XPP
spec uses them, and not only when other people use them; if so, then 
perhaps the WG will eventually conclude that the original request for 
definitions was not as errant a thought as you appear to have thought it.

-- 
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* C. M. Sperberg-McQueen, Black Mesa Technologies LLC
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Received on Wednesday, 30 October 2013 14:48:40 UTC