- From: Paul Prescod <papresco@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
- Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 21:20:04 -0400
- To: cbullard@hiwaay.net
- CC: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
len bullard wrote: > > If we restrict paramater entities to the *non-required* subset then only > > validating parsers will ever have to deal with them. Perl Hackers and > > Browser Vendors will not. > > I don't disagree. But when you start presenting this to users, > not SGML designers, not DTD designers, not me or you or Martin or > Deb or Eve, or the other 1/100000 of the community that has to do > this first time, the fewer features the better. Users who are not DTD designers will never hear the words "parameter entity". Even if they do, the concept is not that complex. Compared to "generic markup" and "DTD" it is a walk in the park: 5 minutes for the basic idea and 15 for the syntax and semantics. Since they tend to start by writing small DTDs I admit that I do not know when they actually start to use them. The problem Tim raised was *implementation* difficulty. > So my rant is and remains, if you can live without it for a season or > two, > dump it. Get your software into the marketplace. Find out what is > needed, by the user (not us) then come back for XML 2.0. We are the users. We are the people who will be writing DTDs -- or else we spend our days training them. I don't believe I have ever written a DTD that did not use parameter entities. Paul Prescod
Received on Tuesday, 3 June 1997 21:37:06 UTC