Re: XML Conformance Levels [Was: ERB Decisions of March 26th]

Peter Flynn <pflynn@curia.ucc.ie> writes:
> At 16:21 26/03/97 -0800, Murray Altheim wrote:
> [...]
> >   XML-CORE:  Level 1 (core of XML)
> >   XML-LINK:  Level 1 (basic linking ala HTML)
> >   XML-STYLE: Level 0 (no stylesheets)
> >    
> >while an intermediate app might declare:
> >
> >   XML-CORE:  Level 2  (charent and literal ENTITY decls, etc.)
> >   XML-LINK:  Level 2  (add a few more interesting link types)
> >   XML-STYLE: Level 1  (dsssl-o or similar)
> >
> >and the mother of all XML apps:
> >
> >   XML-CORE:  Level 3  (ext. text ENTITIES, PUBLIC, DELEGATE support, etc.)
> >   XML-LINK:  Level 3  (full linking; ~TEI, etc.)
> >   XML-STYLE: Level 2  (dsssl)
> 
> O goddess, please not. This is in jest, right?

Nope. But what's the alternative?

      XML-CORE:    fully supported or no support at all
      XML-LINK:    fully supported or no support at all
      XML-STYLE:   fully supported or no support at all
      
Now really sit back and let that sink in a minute. If you want to develop
an XML processor/application, you either support CORE or not. Fine so far.
But if you want *any* linking or stylesheets (and you can't approach HTML's
functionality at all without both) then you must implement both *completely*.

Now again sit back and let that sink in a minute. Tim's already choking
on all the things we've decided to do, much less what some of us would
desire. If the market perceives XML as a lesser cousin of HTML, then we 
all hurt and XML dies. If it's so complex that the only developers are
companies (as opposed to our favorite college student developer scenario),
then only companies can play, but that works better than nobody *but* the
college students. Conformance levels would allow both.

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim, SGML Grease Monkey                    <altheim@eng.sun.com>
Member of Technical Staff, Tools Development & Support
Sun Microsystems, 2550 Garcia Ave., MS UMPK17-102, Menlo Park, CA 94043 USA
         "Give a monkey the tools and he'll build a typewriter."

Received on Thursday, 27 March 1997 00:26:56 UTC