- From: Arnaud Le Hors <lehors@w3.org>
- Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 20:32:14 +0200
- To: John Bradley <john.bradley@kcl.ac.uk>
- CC: www-dom@w3.org
John Bradley wrote: > > I, too, had been planning to use the DOM as the basis for software > development that was based on XML, but not in a browser-context. I > have also been disappointed to see that a number of XML "things", > including (of interest to my application) efficient linking between > elements connected by means of IDs and IDref attributes, do not seem > to be anywhere under discussion. Actually, we've discussed this many times and we really want to address this in DOM Level 3. The problem for now is that doing this requires knowing an attribute is an ID. This information being part of the DTD, it is not currently addressed by the DOM. Once, we've done the DTD representation, this should no longer be a problem. > I can, of course, extend the > definition myself to meet my needs, but this seems such a pity, for > the reason Stephen Savitzky notes above. I agree it's too bad, but that's all we have to offer for now. We simply can't address everything at the same time and we have to prioritize things. > I confess that I know nothing about "how things are done here" (!). Well, to make it short: The W3C is a consortium that gathers more than 350 member companies. Anyone of them can propose a new activity, on agreement a charter is written and typically a Working Group is created, with representatives from interested member companies, and tasked to achieve whatever the charter sets as the goals. The most common result is a specification that goes through various steps, including releases both to the membership and the public. Once the Working Group is happy with, the spec goes through a final review from the membership, based on which the Director decides to make it a Recommendation. So nothing happens just like that and everybody gets a chance to have a say. Even you! > Nonetheless, I'd be interested in knowing where, and how, decisions > are made about what specific parts of the XML spec are recognized in > the DOM. The situation should quickly improve on that front since the W3C should soon have a recommendation called "XML Information Set" that defines it. See http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-infoset Even though for historical reasons it comes after the DOM Level 1, the DOM is based on this. -- Arnaud
Received on Wednesday, 1 September 1999 14:32:17 UTC