Re: New release of XML Spec DTD/Stylesheets

/ Philippe Le Hegaret <plh@w3.org> was heard to say:
| On Wed, 2002-08-21 at 09:53, Norman Walsh wrote:
|> / Philippe Le Hegaret <plh@w3.org> was heard to say:
|> | I'd like a few addition to the next version:
|> | - would it be possible to define a namespace for the xmlspec elements?
|> |   http://www.w3.org/2002/08/xmlspec (or something like this).
|> 
|> No. Doing so would break every existing stylesheet for xmlspec.
|
| then let's change the stylesheet as well.

Well, yeah, sure. Except that there are lots of mutated copies of it
all over the world, a whole raft of important legacy documents, etc.

| I've been working with Ian on
| an issue system designed for the W3C Process and I'd like to reuse the
| xmlspec elements as much as possible.

I hear you.

|> | - would it possible to use xlink? ie s/href/xlink:href/
|> 
|> Yes. But it would be a significant backwards-incompatibility problem.
|> Certainly not something I'd want to do before a 3.0 release.
|
| ok, but since we're going to have to replace the DTDs and stylesheets,
| why don't we bite the bullet and switch to xmlspec v3.0 then. Lots of
| WGs already have workarounds to be in sync with the latest pubrules so
| the value of v2.2 is not really significant for them.

I'm not saying we need to have a 2.2 before we have a 3.0. But if it
turns out that 10 or 15 small backwards-compatible changes would help
most WGs a lot, I'd like to do that too.

If we make 3.0 radically different (like in a new namespace or with
completely different linking semantics), many existing documents will
never convert to the new spec.

This means I'll get to maintain the old version with it's multiple
hacks, the new version, and a set of stylesheets for both. Can you
sense my hesitation :-)

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman.Walsh@Sun.COM    | It's all fun and games until someone loses an
XML Standards Architect | eye. Then it's just fun with a pirate.
Sun Microsystems, Inc.  |

Received on Wednesday, 21 August 2002 17:11:57 UTC