Re: C.4 Undeclared entities?

On Fri, 25 Oct 1996 09:30:29 -0700, bosak@atlantic-83.Eng.Sun.COM (Jon Bosak)
wrote:

>[Charles Goldfarb:]
>
>| I hope someone can prove me wrong by rebutting the following
>| proposition (formal mathematical proof not required):
>| 
>| XML without a DTD is no different from HTML extended by the ability to
>| "add tags and attributes" just by defining processing for the
>| additions in a style sheet (cascading or otherwise).
>
>A well-formed XML document without a DTD describes a logical tree of
>arbitrary depth.  HTML does not, unless you overload the DIV tag in
>ways that are horrible to contemplate.  This is a difference.

But not enough to win out against "HTML with user extensions via style sheet".
To teach the value of "a logical tree of arbitrary depth" we need to teach the
value of structure and document types. This case is weakened significantly if we
don't require DTDs and offer the possibility of validation of all XML documents.

We needn't (shouldn't) require validation at rendition time, but there should
always be a DTD that can be accessed for editing and/or validation. Without it,
XML won't be a sufficient improvement on HTML to win a significant market.
--
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 Friday, 25 October 1996 17:36:33 UTC