Re: Recent ERB votes

[Paul Grosso:]

| XML as being defined now will require new tools and will force new
| decisions upon potential users that will cause extra confusion as they
| try to figure out what to do with their data.

We have gone to a lot of trouble to ensure that existing tools can be
used to create XML.  It would help this discussion if you could
specify the features of XML that make it impossible to create using
existing SGML tools.

| There is a huge and important customer base that has a whole lot
| invested in "legacy" SGML.  I suspect that only a very small portion
| of the total investment is, for example, based on the various
| minimization techniques of 8879, so I'm happy to see them tossed.  But
| I suspect, for example, about 99% of the investment is built on
| assumptions that there are EMPTY elements.

The XML syntax for EMPTY elements is conformant with 8879 and will not
break 8879-conformant authoring tools.  The conversion of EMPTY
elements in SGML data for export to XML Web browsers is trivial.  How
does this negatively affect the existing base of SGML documents?

Jon

Received on Thursday, 7 November 1996 19:10:45 UTC