Re: Make DTDs optional?

On Tue, 1 Oct 1996 01:54:12 +1000 (EST), Rick Jelliffe <ricko@allette.com.au>
wrote:

>On Mon, 30 Sep 1996, Charles F. Goldfarb wrote:
>
>> 3. They won't get that support unless we make XML absurdly easy to implement.
>> That means a delivery form of an SGML instance with no tricky parsing,no SGML
>> declaration, and no DTD.
>
>I agree 100% with #3.  I don't think the ease which someone with a text
>editor can produce junk should be too influential on XML.  
>
>But I think there may be a different potential user base than existing
>SGML applications.  The plug-in/compound-document market may be large
>(VBX, Java applets, Netscape plugins, OpenDoc, OLE {whatever it is called
>this week}, etc) and could do with some standard text formats for the
>small input documents these use.  

I think it will be the same user community -- those who know the value of SGML
-- but this "XML as delivery form of SGML" will give them a bunch of new
opportunities, such as you describe. Those opportunities, in turn, will extend
that user base.

>
<snip>
>
>Is this really more what XML should be about: a markup language for
>presenting documents in the form required by the application?  (Which
>would correspond to the normalised form of an SGML document when parsed
>against archetectural forms that model the XML application.) In other
>words, a  temporary/application/closed-system format rather than a 
>archiving/modelling/manipulation/open-system format like SGML.  

Yes. Yes. Yes. That should be our slogan: Archive in SGML, Deliver in XML. It's
a damn sight better than today's: Archive in SGML, Deliver in HTML.
--
Charles F. Goldfarb * Information Management Consulting * +1(408)867-5553
           13075 Paramount Drive * Saratoga CA 95070 * USA
  International Standards Editor * ISO 8879 SGML * ISO/IEC 10744 HyTime
 Prentice-Hall Series Editor * CFG Series on Open Information Management
--

Received on Tuesday, 1 October 1996 06:10:37 UTC