- From: David G. Durand <dgd@cs.bu.edu>
- Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 15:04:53 -0500
- To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
At 10:43 PM 10/28/96, Charles F. Goldfarb wrote: >On Sun, 27 Oct 1996 20:40:12 -0800, Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote: >> Charles' proposal boils down to: >> >> A well-formed XML document must include a <!DOCTYPE >> Some of Tim's prose deleted by Charles... >>So, on balance, I would at the moment vote against requiring <!DOCTYPE >>as a condition of well-formedness. Even if it were desirable, it would >>be widely ignored, and I think that rules that aren't going to be >>obeyed shouldn't be made. >casuistry deleted.... >I am *not* proposing that there be an explicit "DTD" for merely "well-formed" >XML. I am proposing, as Eliot has pointed out, that there is a legitimate 8879 >DOCTYPE declaration for the case where there is no explicit DTD, viz: ><!DOCTYPE DocumentTypeName SYSTEM> > >If XML uses this to introduce a well-formed DTD-less document, it will satisfy >SGML conformance as well. Therefore, there is no reason to break SGML >conformance for well-formed DTD-less XML documents. Bil gave a great reason: This will not, in fact, be put in by users, thus rendering the notion of well-formed XML documents irrelevant. Well-formed XML documents should, therefore, _not_ be SGML compatible in this way, as it will lead to a dearth of well-formed XML documents. We should not try to impose any conditions on well-formed documents that are not _REQUIRED IN ORDER FOR AN XML PROCESSOR TO PARSE IT_. The doctype is not needed for XML processing, so it should not be in well-formed XML. Valid XML arguably has a much greater claim on it for SGML compatibility, even for things that could be done automatically; well-formed XML does not. -- David RE delenda est. I am not a number. I am an undefined character. _________________________________________ David Durand dgd@cs.bu.edu \ david@dynamicDiagrams.com Boston University Computer Science \ Sr. Analyst http://www.cs.bu.edu/students/grads/dgd/ \ Dynamic Diagrams --------------------------------------------\ http://dynamicDiagrams.com/ MAPA: mapping for the WWW \__________________________ http://www.dynamicdiagrams.com/services_map_main.html
Received on Tuesday, 29 October 1996 15:04:57 UTC