method entities

Hi,

Looking at:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-dom-ts/2001Mar/0023.html

Is this the latest publication on the dtd by the way ?

The following constructs makes it more difficult to convert existing tests e.g. in Java to the dtd.


<!ENTITY lastChild "getLastChild">
<!ENTITY lastChild_Type "Node">

<call name="&lastChild;" type="&lastChild_Type;" />

A couple of questions:

1. Why do we use entities for method names ? 

Why not just:

       <call name="getLastChild" type="Node"/>

2. If you use entities than the return type is already know so a simple:
      <call name="&getLastChild;"/>
would do ?

3. What will happen with private methods will they be defined in terms of entities. It seems to me that a generic approach for dom methods and private methods has it advantages



Jeroen