Re: What to do given both SYSTEM and PUBLIC?

> From: Joe English <jenglish@crl.com>
> 
> . . .
> 
> (If the software does not know how to automatically resolve
> PUBLIC ID's -- which I suspect most software will not, since
> _nobody_ is sure how to do this yet -- . . .
> 
> . . .
> 
> Such systems will naturally have to be very good
> at automatically resolving PUBLIC IDs, which will be
> tricky, since nobody knows how to do this at all yet.
> 
> . . .

Regardless of what we decide wrt catalogs, Public IDs, and XML,
I don't understand Joe's comments above that "nobody knows how
to [resolve PUBLIC IDs] at all yet."

The first version of the SGML Open TR9401 describing catalogs was
published in spring of 1994.  At the time it was published, there were
already two systems that had implemented it.  A fair number of SGML
tools now support TR9401.  Users have been using SO catalogs for almost
three years.

Granted, there may well be other ways to resolve Public IDs; there are
tools that don't implement TR9401; and flexible, dynamic, internet-wide
resolution that handles mirrors and fallbacks goes beyond the scope of
TR9401.  I am not in the business of defending TR9401 against all
comers, but I do think Joe's statements are poor reflections of reality.

paul

Received on Tuesday, 18 February 1997 17:54:35 UTC