Re: Couldn't XML allow and ignore omitted tag minimization

(I sent this earlier but misaddressed it.)

[Paul Grosso:]

| When this was brought up at Tuesday's SGML Open Technical Committee
| meeting, Jon suggested I post this despite the fact that this issue
| was decided once (and despite the fact that Jon appeared to disagree
| with me on this).

Actually, I wasn't so much disagreeing as trying to represent what I
seemed to recall as the reason we didn't allow "- -" in element
declarations: pure Occam's Razor -- since we don't allow minimization,
that syntax is unnecessary.  If I understand Paul correctly, he's
arguing that conforming XML applications should ignore the omitted tag
minimizations without getting sick on them, so that "O O" (for
example) would just be ignored.  This would make it easier,
presumably, to grandfather existing SGML DTDs and maintain single
versions that would work for both SGML and XML applications.

I am made uneasy by the thought that a legal DTD would then be stating
specifically something that would not be true in XML, namely that
certain omissions were allowed when, in fact, they would not be.  But
I'm willing at least to entertain the argument that this tradeoff
makes DTD maintenance a lot easier.

Jon

Received on Sunday, 2 March 1997 22:07:20 UTC