Re: Parameter entities vs. GI name groups

At 10:23 AM 20/06/97 -0500, David G. Durand wrote:
>Let's relax compatibility with SGML and make PEs into straight text macros
>rather than eliminating them. I think that this would be a win for users as
>well, since the harders thing about learning PEs is that the string
>substitution model is _not_ correct.

Exact-a-mundo.  There is nothing wrong in principle with having
a macro-processor facility in markup declarations, and I certainly
agree 100% with the people who lament the loss of PEs on these
grounds.  It's just that doing it in a way that's compatible with 
8879's replacement rules is messy and complicated and hard to 
understand.

Having said that, I can't at this point support simply dropping 
SGML compatibility on this issue (although it *would* solve the
problem).

WG8-folk on the list; are we the only ones who would like a
radical simplification of the PE replacement rules, or is this
another pending-for-the-subset item?  How about another SGML
Declaration option that says PEs are just string-substituted
without regard for where they may be? -Tim

Received on Friday, 20 June 1997 11:11:29 UTC