RE: XHTML

On Fri, 21 May 1999, Jelks Cabaniss wrote:

> Why have three parts?  Why not just real XHTML and XHTML
> "Lite" (WFHTML), the latter which would have no XML Declaration, PIs wrapped in
> <!-- -->, no CDATA sections, no internal subsets, and only decimal NCRs.  (I
> don't know how one can do that *formally*: either it's XML or it's not.
> Wouldn't one have to create an "XML Lite" Recommendation -- no CDATA, etc. -- to
> base it on?  :)

Exactly: "XML Lite" documents means that there will be "XML Lite" 
processors. 

Because of US anti-trust laws and market behaviour, we can expect many 
technology built on top of XML to end up with 2 rival specifications 
(e.g. stylesheets will have CSS-style and XSL-style; RDF has two 
syntaxes). Having two kind of XML is to be expected to some extent (and, 
indeed, it vindicates SGML's original idea that it is impossible to come 
up with a universally usable syntax or feature-set, so you should allow 
multiple syntaxes or profiles), but I hope it is resisted as much as 
possible. 

On my Website, I want that whatever XML data I send to a remote end will 
be parsed and made available at that end; I don't want to suddenly find 
that there is some bogus XML processor at the other end that doesnt even 
accept XML 1.0. 

That is why I think it is far more fruitful to think in terms of 
"Well-formed HTML" rather than "XML Lite". If there is to be an XML lite, 
then do what the WAP people did and give it a completely different name 
and different MIME type: excellent move.


Rick Jelliffe

Received on Tuesday, 1 June 1999 05:05:23 UTC