- From: Paul Prescod <papresco@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
- Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 15:59:00 -0400 (EDT)
- To: bbos@mygale.inria.fr (Bert Bos)
- Cc: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
> > Yes, but it creates unbounded linear dependencies, forcing the parsing of > > an entire document from the beginning, with all entitiy references > > resolved. A State-independent solution allows "lazy" entity parsing, and > > re-use of partial documents as well-formed XML fragments. > > True, in the worst case, but there are several arguments why this is > not a big problem: > > - The vast majority of documents is small, on the Web that is even > more true than elsewhere. Not true! Most HTML *files* are small. There are many massive documents on the Web that are broken into non-intuitive, hard to use chunks because the Web is massively optimized for small documents instead of for retrieving small parts of large documents. *WE MUST NOT PERPETUATE THIS MISTAKE*. > - You can arbitrarily limit namespaces by putting a !doctype > somewhere. Then you introduce many OTHER namespace problems like IDs, entities etc. > I agree with you there, but there is a fallacy in calling them "PIs", > since PIs are a term from SGML, and in SGML they are not targeted at > SGML parsers, but at the applications built on top of the parsers. > > You're defining XML, you need a widget to define something that is > common to, and obligatory for all XML parsers. You can use whatever > syntax you like. Who cares whether it looks like SGML or not? Please see: http://www.textuality.com/sgml-erb/dd-1996-0001.html These are our goals and I feel that it is too late to change them. XML would be a very different language if SGML compatibility were not an important goal. Paul Prescod
Received on Wednesday, 14 May 1997 15:59:11 UTC