Re: What to do given both SYSTEM and PUBLIC?

> What on earth are you guys *talking* about??!!
> 
> Why on earth would it be an error? 
> Are you seriously suggesting that if
> Peter Flynn's TEI Lite documents point the user to a copy of the TEI
> Lite DTD on Peter's server in Ireland, but my local catalog file points
> the XML processor to a copy on my hard disk, and the XML system finds it
> there, that Peter and I have together committed an error? 

not if the resulting bytestreams are identical, no,
When I asked the question, I said what should happen if the results
were different -- not if the same file was stored in different places.

E.g. Priscilla has modified TEI Lite, and expects the SYSTEM ID to be used,
but retains the same PUBLIC ID so as not to have to download style sheets.
But Daniella's software ignores SYSTEM, uses PUBLIC to fetch the catalog
directly from the TEI server in Romania, and gets a different DTD as a result.

Me, I'd say Priscilla should have changed the PUBLIC ID if she had been
more PUBLIC-ID-savvy and had her SGML University Diploma, but as she was
really an HTML hacker and didn;t understand all this, she tried it until
it worked, and did The Wrong Thing.  No amount of user education will
ever fix this unless and until there are no new users.


PUBLIC IDs only work in practice when they are used with care, thought
and undersanding.

Lee

Received on Thursday, 20 February 1997 13:35:40 UTC