Re: Update on namespaces

On Wed, 18 Jun 1997 21:21:15 -0400 (EDT) Len Bullard said:
>All redefining the DTD into uselessness does is increase the
>urge to abandon XML work and return to fixing SGML.  That

Amen.

>The XML reference to ISO 8879 must be normative to prevent precisely
>this kind of bad judgement and unregulated process.

Amen again.  I've said this privately to Len, and I'll say it publicly
now:  when the topic came up earlier, I argued against a "normative"
reference to 8879 on the grounds that the XML spec already guarantees
SGML conformance, and normative references undercut the self-sufficiency
of the XML spec.  I dismissed as paranoid the counter-argument that if
there was no normative reference, some people would argue that XML
documents don't need to be valid SGML, and that the conformance of XML
to 8879 is unimportant.

Events and discussion since that time have now persuaded me that Len and
the others in favor of a normative reference (aka 'the paranoids') were
right, and I was wrong.

I now favor adding a normative reference to 8879, with an explanatory
note pointing out that implementors who correctly implement what's in
the XML-lang spec will automatically conform to 8879.  That would at
least help clarify the relationship between SGML and XML.

There seems to me no chance whatsoever that any of this namespace
discussion can possibly be regarded as sufficiently cooked to allow
inclusion in XML version 1.0.

-CMSMcQ

Received on Friday, 20 June 1997 14:43:39 UTC