Re: SERIOUS concerns about implementation

I concur completely with Michael.

No-one has ever said that existing legacy SGML (or HTML) files will be
valid XML files.  They won't.

The conversion is automatic and trivial.

The <!--* comment syntax *--> came from me, and is a sort of
transition syntax: you can use this in SGML today, as any SGML
parser will accept it as a comment that just happens to contain the stars.
If'when SGML is enhanced to allow different start and end comment delimiters,
this comment syntax lets you include -- in comments.

Also, yes, it looks familiar to C programmers, and there are a lot of us.

> On Thu, 20 Feb 1997 06:35:10 -0500 Peter Murray-Rust said:
> ><EXAMPLE>
> >If you install Panorama there is a directory called catalog, with about
> >35 files which are a mixture of popular *.dtd and *.ent.
> >EVERY SINGLE FILE WILL BREAK XML UNLESS THE SYNTAX IS CHANGED.

No, none of these files will break.  They are all SGML files, and
are not for use with XML.  I expect that a future Panorama may well
handle both XML and SGML...

> I suggest that any proposals to
>   - start allowing comments in arbitrary SGML declarations
>   - return to the use of -- -- com delimiters
>   - remove the restrictions on content models which will make many
>     existing DTDs break with XML parsers
>   - restore the SDATA entity type
> need some further motivation before we reopen these questions.

I agree.  All the changes were made for good reason.
XML is a subset of SGML, but that doesn't mean that a subset of existing
SGML files are XML files.

> Is there a reason to revisit the decisions?
No.

Lee

Received on Thursday, 20 February 1997 12:51:33 UTC