Re: documentation for UA interoperability

From: lee@sq.com
> Lauren wrote:
> I would very much like to see a formal way of describing elements.

This would be a *very good thing*, but it is just a subset of the
problem of comments in a declaration.  All that is really needed is a
formal specification for relating comments in a declaration to some
part of that declaration.  The problem with SGML right now is that in
the case of:

<!ATTLIST foo 
          -- this is ambiguous --
	  name CDATA #IMPLIED
>

it is unclear what the comment is meant to apply to.  If there were a
formal way of determining what part fo the declaration the comment
applied to, it would be easy for the parser to return the comment,
associated to it's context.  This formal defintion could (easily?) be
part of the parsing specification for the DTD.

> I rule out the possibility of "put it in comments", as those are not
> normally fed back to a client of a parser.

The reason parser don't normally feed back the comments is because
comments are ignored markup in SGML.  The only way to return the
comments is to return the markup, and even then, you are faced with
the ambiguity question I raised above.



> Will XML have architectural forms?
> I didn't think we had #FIXED attributes any more...
> 
> Without inheritance, arch forms are awfully inelegant, it seems to me,
> but they are a kludge I could live with.

I think it would be a mistake to define XML such that we lost
architectural forms.  I see architectural forms as realizing there
potential in exactly such an environment as XML is being designed for
(ie. dynamic data interchange between systems).


-enjoy,
  derek

--> Derek E Denny-Brown II <--- SGML/HyTime/DSSSL/WWW/C++/Perl/etc.
<derdb@techno.com> <http://www.techno.com/~derdb/> <work:716-389-0963>
 "technical staff" @ TechnoTeacher, Inc.   <http://www.techno.com/>
--> A smart cartoon never stagnates in one place long enough for 
      a safe/piano/etc to fall from the sky and squash it.

Received on Friday, 25 October 1996 16:51:56 UTC