Re: Let's get some principles nailed down

noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com writes:
>I presume we agree that applications should not attribute significance
>to the difference between:
>
>        <e attr="1"/>
>
>and
>
>        <e attr='1'/>

Most applications will not; some applications may.  It is frequently
convenient to ignore that difference.

>Infoset is a good normative expression of a data model that shows why
>they are the same.   I don't think Tim's original reference to XML
>syntax captures the equivalence. 

The Infoset simply ignores the difference, as it doesn't consider it
relevant to its concerns.  Various other XML specs (DTDs, schemas) also
ignore the difference.  I'm not sure that means they are or should be
the same.

>That's not what I intended.  I would deal with your concern regarding
>proprietary binary with a separate recommendation along the lines of:
>
>"XML 1.x SHOULD be used as the representation when XML is to be stored
>or communicated in byte- or character-serial form." 

That's reasonable, if unenforceable.  

>Note, however, that I am intentionally supporting the use of
>mechanisms such as SAX and DOM as a means of communicating XML between
>applications. SAX and DOM are Infosets, but they are not XML 1.x (no
>angle brackets, no single or double quotes.)  I think that having one
>application or subsystem offer information in the form of a DOM or SAX
>stream, for consumption by another application (I.e. with no
>intermediate serialization to < >), is a fine usage pattern and should
>not be discouraged.  This pattern is commonly implemented by tooling
>such as XSL processors (Xalan has supported it for years), and is
>essential for performance, particularly of server-side XML
>applications. 

I think at this point you've confused processing of information stored
in XML with the definition of XML representations for that information.
I have no problem with chaining processors.  I have many problems with
defining the representation in terms of what those processors care to
process.
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org

Received on Friday, 22 November 2002 17:29:42 UTC