- From: Bill Smith <bill.smith@Eng.Sun.COM>
- Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 18:19:16 -0700 (PDT)
- To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
Liam Quin wrote: > A language needs to be > * consistent & regular > * easy to explain > * clearly and unambiguously defined. > > It is a fact of history that SGML does not meet these goals, but any new > system for which wide deployment is desired must do so. Just so. The fact that this group does not universally understand SGML's RS/RE rules and/or their application indicates that SGML fails on at least two of the three points above. XML should not follow SGML's lead here. Neither implementors nor authors can understand the rules. David Durand's "treating the entire SGML input as a single record" has immediate, minimalist appeal to me. Line breaks would be whitespace and would always be treated as such. There would be no need to describe RS/RE (pseudo) characters or their associated rules - there wouldn't be any. Measuring David's proposal against Lee's list show's that whitespace handling would be: * consistent & regular, * easy to explain, and * clearly and unambiguously defined. What remains is sufficiency. Is this proposal sufficient to meet the needs of authors and implementors? If so than I believe we have an excellent solution to a rather nasty problem. Relax the conformace requirement and declare victory. Bill
Received on Monday, 23 September 1996 21:22:07 UTC