Re: Final words, I think, on error handling

Here I go, tilting at windmills and preaching to the converted.

Michael Sperberg-McQueen wrote:
> It is very important, for the long-term health of XML, that with
> regard to error tolerance and error detection we adopt something more
> like the culture of SGML (there is a spec, and if your document has
> errors, you better fix them pronto because otherwise your software
> may break and you will in any case be laughed to scorn and possibly
> ridden out of the next SGML 'XX conference on a rail) than like the
> culture of HTML as it has developed (where error recovery is in some
> cases just another name for buggy software not noticing the errors).

The culture of SGML has everything to do with *validation* and nothing
to do with *error recovery*. If the gosh-darn browser makers want to fix
HTML or stop XML from becoming a cesspool they should just have a
"validate this page" menu item. People would use it. The annoying thing
is I am fairly confident that they WILL NOT (I have asked them to
several times in the past). They will not embed validating parsers. They
will not embed link checkers. They will simply allow people to shift
their laziness to another part of the system.

In other words, the value of XML in other contexts is being compromised
because browser makers are too lazy to embed proper validators but hope
that a single level of validation will "send a message." In fact,
several levels are needed. This is not progress, but passing the buck.

On the other hand, if the browser makers incorporate decent validation
at all levels in their XML browsers then I will be happy to reevaluate
the recent ERB decision as just a mistake and not a ploy for reducing
programming effort at the expense of users and other vendors.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Thursday, 8 May 1997 08:32:50 UTC