Re: A28: syntax of markup declarations?

At 02:07 AM 10/8/96 EDT, you wrote:
>| 2. 20,000 or so people already know the DTD language.
>| That is 20,000 more than know MGML.
>And considerably more than 980,000 fewer than know HTML.
>I.e. hardly anyone knows SGML by comparison.  Since it is hoped that
>XML will be used by non-SGML users (no?), this is spurious.

I think that there is a major fallacy here. If XML *requires* markup
declarations, then it is structural, and strict, and is for SGML-types. The
HTML community will not really embrace it. There is ABSOLUTELY NO CHANCE
that the "HTML crowd" is going to embrace markup declaration no matter how
warm and fuzzy you make the syntax.

If it *allows* markup declarations, then only "CS-types" (and a few odd-ball
Artsy types =) ) will use that feature, and the SGML markup declaration
language will be sufficient.

There is no circumstance where XML becomes everybody's favourite language
because it has a beautiful markup declaration syntax. Therefore, I think
that we are wasting our time treating the issue as if it were on the scale
of entities, style sheets, linking syntax and other make-it-or-break-it
decisions.

Someone's sure to respond sarcastically about RS/RE, but the issue of
whether XML _looks_ and _feels_ like HTML or SGML is a major one, and RS/RE
can make or break that.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Tuesday, 8 October 1996 03:23:44 UTC