Re: Working on a new version of the XML spec DTD

At 12:21 1998 05 15 -0400, Mike Champion wrote:
>At 12:14 PM 5/15/98 -0400, Paul Grosso wrote:
>>Despite good agruments mentioned in Lauren's follow up to this, I do tend
>>to agree with Tim here.  It would be really nice to have one DTD rather
>>than customization layers insofar as possible.  It just makes setup and
>>style files and interchange and all so much easier.
>
>That would certainly be best for the DOM editors, but then wouldn't other
>WG's would have to deal with Gavin's API specification tags, that no one
>other than the DOM WG has any need for? 
>
>Would this noticeably inconvenience anyone?  

Why?  If an author doesn't need a tag, s/he doesn't have to use it.
We've all been doing this stuff for over a decade--I don't see any
inconvenience.

The only overhead of "extra tags" is in DTD maintenance and possible
tool support.  Since the same tools will probably be used by all the
working groups, the support effort is required--and will probably be
easier if there is only one DTD.

As far as DTD maintenance is concerned, one could argue both ways,
but I would think having one DTD shared among a fairly small set of
WGs--especially if managed by Eve--is still well within the limits
of tractable and any overhead is outweighed by other benefits.

The key benefit is being able to take any XML-related spec and read
it using *the* DTD/stylesheet/whatever you've already set up without
having to futz around all over the Web finding the right customization
layer and twiddling stylesheets/scripts/whatever.

Received on Friday, 15 May 1998 12:52:46 UTC