- From: Paul Prescod <papresco@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
- Date: Wed, 14 May 1997 23:34:39 -0400
- To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
I agree that requiring PI users to declare the namespace for PIs is a good thing, however. If we are going to allow its use we should allow its *safe* use. I just don't see that we need to standardize them beyond that. Rick Jelliffe wrote: > If we make PIs hygenic, we needn't encourage people to avoid anything. > They can stick PIs in for every specific target, without stuffing up their > document's portability, as they see fit. But the "sticking in PIs for every specific target" is exactly what they are using SGML to get away from. That's why PIs should be discouraged. > An example use for formal PIs is documents-in-progress. Editor settings, > revision control numbers, etc, are all things that should be accessable > in the grove, even if they are only to be used by the editor application > & not the browser. At the moment, they get plonked with a wink in > comments or in elements. It don't believe that a lack of formalism is stopping editors from doing all of that now. I think that there are two things stopping them: #1. Superstition, brought on by people like me who teach (preach?) that PIs should be seldom used. I think that the examples that you site are reasonable, but only SGML gurus write SGML editors so they know a thing or two about parsing arbitrary syntax and should be able to get past the superstition without help. #2. I've been told that some tools choke on PIs. That's just poor programming. The semantics of a PI you don't understand are simple to deal with: ignore it. I don't think that formalizing PIs will fix either problem. I'm not even sure I WANT to fix the first problem. I think it is GOOD that non-gurus are afraid of PIs. I'm not out and out hostile to the idea of making them easier to parse and work with, but I don't think it is necessary. Paul Prescod
Received on Wednesday, 14 May 1997 23:38:26 UTC