Re: XML Editors

Paul Grosso wrote:
>  
> In other words, to say that XML is to be creatable (not just readable)
> without reference to a DTD is to say that there is no single non-trivial
> DTD that can a priori be known to be able to represent the potential
> output of an XML editing session even given a DTD that represented the
> document at the start of the editing session.
> 
> Is this, in fact, the crux of the goal of this XML effort:  that an
> XML content provider or editor can create new elements/attributes on
> the fly and insert them however they wish in the document (with about
> the only constraint being that the basic synchronicity of element
> hierarchy be maintained)?

This expresses my concern.  Yes, some of us who have only recently 
joined this party have a considerable reading effort to absorb the 
proposals prepared and accepted in advance of the working group
formation.

That said, my own use of SGML in enterprise environments, and a
principal 
objection to the application of HTML in some enterprises is the 
ability of a user community in a specific domain to create a DTD that 
controls an authoring/edting session and ensures conformance of content
through validation. Process design typically applies validation tests
where the test itself is 
the standard agreement that a process closes correctly.  In large
distributed 
concurrent production environments, this is the main advantage,
sometimes the only 
advantage, of SGML.

In short form, if XML does not enable me to provide a DTD to which all 
parties to a process can contractually obligate themselves to, then 
all the efficient parsing, network transmission, and other programmer 
conveniences are moot.  The recommendations for applying XML to
intranets 
will be the same as for HTML:  Don't.

len bullard
lockheed-martin

Received on Friday, 13 September 1996 14:02:32 UTC