Re: SVG 1.2 WD - Usefulness of XML Schema

On Wednesday, April 30, 2003, 9:26:10 AM, AndrewWatt2001 wrote:


Aac> In Chapter 1 of the 29th April SVG 1.2 WD feedback was sought on the 
Aac> usefulness or not of W3C XML Schema. My view is that XML Schema (ideally of 
Aac> course not "incorrect") is, in some circumstances, very useful.

Aac> I recall one W3C specification where the text was ambiguous (at
Aac> least to me) but the XML Schema made the situation clear.

Yes. We did that in the past with DTD snippets, which are compact and
unambiguous. However, DTDs are not namespace friendly, have limited
expressive power, and become really verbose and unreadable when
modularized.

So, we tried Schema snippets this time. Of course we want a modular
schema too; it remains to be seen if this goal is compatible with that
of describing the functionality of a given element in a comprehensible
and terse way.

The snippets do omit some things, such as animation children.

Aac> In my view a schema is particularly helpful when it is also
Aac> available as a free-standing .xsd document.

Yes, clearly. Although that works best when the schema for the whole
language is available. The current draft is just the new stuff compared
to SVG 1.1. We anticipate that later drafts will include the full
language of course.

Aac> This gives the opportunity to open the file in, for example,
Aac> Mozilla or XMLSpy where one can collapse/expand the tree
Aac> structure provided by the default stylesheet in Mozilla or use
Aac> the proprietary view in XMLSpy. I find that helpful to be able to
Aac> study specific aspects of the schema.

To clarify - would it be helpful to have the snippets as standalone
files, or is it only when we have the full schema?

Aac> I would, therefore, encourage the WG to develop a full W3C XML
Aac> Schema for SVG 1.2.

Aac> Andrew Watt

Thanks for your comments.

-- 
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org

Received on Wednesday, 30 April 2003 04:13:07 UTC