Re: Parameter entities vs. GI name groups

> Sigh.  My fallback position has always been, can we banish
> PE's from the internal subset?  

I could buy that. If we make the internal subset simple enough, 
we could even require parsers to read ATTLISTs for defaulted and
fixed values. From there it is just a hop, skip and a jump to
architectures.

> The idea is, even if PE's
> are agreed to be necessary for validating applications, I can
> see no good argument that a lightweight DTD-less WF doc
> reader should ever have to deal with them.

I agree 100%.

> As for the difficulty: I (and I think I'm not alone) am
> sensitive to issues of parser size.  Processing PEs is not
> rocket science but will materially add to code bulk.  Part
> of this code size is code that checks that the PE began and 
> ended at a legal place [which code SERVES NO USEFUL PURPOSE 
> FOR MAN OR BEAST]

The question of the hour, then, is would WG8 supply us with a 
simpler, more general PE feature or can the SGML WG come up 
with a simpler, more restricted (but still useful) PE? Language 
lawyers? The proposed WebSGML changes to SGML are so massive 
that PE generalization doesn't seem outrageous to ask -- if 
it is a good idea.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Friday, 20 June 1997 15:14:15 UTC