RE: DTD for protocol-03?

Let me put this another way.

1) 99% of the people who read our specs do not understand DTDs, they do
understand BNF.
2) The main XML rallying cry was "NO MORE DTDS!!" DTDs are a deprecated
syntax which is to be replaced by the XML Schema draft.
3) DTDs are NOT required to validate XML syntax. DTDs are not required
for ANYTHING having to do with XML.

So given that we MUST provide a BNF definition and that DTDs are old
news, I see no reason to waste valuable time trying to maintain two
separate definitions of the same material. If and when the XML Schema
group produces a usable finished product I will be the first to support
its adoption, until then, time is a scarce resource and there is no
reason to waste it trying to write DTDs which only a tiny fraction of
our community can use.

That having been said, if someone would like to volunteer their time to
write up the DTDs and have them inserted into an Appendix in the draft I
am sure the authors will be happy to let this person see the draft
before we submit it as an ID so this volunteer can write up the DTDs and
we can submit them as part of the draft.

		Yaron


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Terry Allen [SMTP:tallen@sonic.net]
> Sent:	Tuesday, October 07, 1997 7:49 AM
> To:	ejw@ics.uci.edu; tallen@sonic.net; Yaron Goland
> Cc:	w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
> Subject:	RE: DTD for protocol-03?
> 
> Yaron Goland writes:
> | DTDs are NOT necessary for XML and in fact are seen as being
> deprecated
> | by many parts of the XML community. Furthermore the DTD syntax is
> not
> | well known amongst the HTTP community, of which DAV is a member,
> while
> | BNF is.
> | 
> | Given that providing a DTD is not necessity for XML and that we will
> | still have to provide our current syntax I propose that we add DTDs,
> as
> | an appendix, to the final draft. Until we reach that final draft,
> there
> | is little point in having to maintain two sets of definitions.
> 
> XML documents may be either well formed (the tags are correctly
> nested)
> or valid.  If valid, there must be a DTD that describes the ways in
> which they may be nested (among other things).  I can't think of 
> anyone in "the XML community" experienced in the processing of
> SGML/XML
> documents who deprecates DTDs.
> 
> If WEBDAV is using XML, it's as much a part of "the XML community"
> as "the HTTP community".  
> 
> Given that a DTD is necessary for validating an XML document,
> and that your XML isn't that complicated, it would be far clearer
> to present what is now given as prose in the form of a DTD, and it
> would also allow early implementors to validate their attempts
> to implement the WEBDAV spec.  As it stands now, there is no
> machine-readable syntax in the spec, yet it could be provided.  That's
> 
> a serious fault.
> 
> (By "qualified GIs" I meant element type names that use the colon
> syntax to indicate derivation of an element from another DTD/schema/
> name space, as "D:PropertyUpdate.)
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
>   Terry Allen    Electronic Publishing Consultant
> tallen[at]sonic.net
>                    http://www.sonic.net/~tallen/
>     Davenport and DocBook:  http://www.ora.com/davenport/index.html
>               at CNgroup:  terry.allen[at]cngroup.com

Received on Tuesday, 7 October 1997 12:59:22 UTC