RE: Comment on XSD 1.1

> 
> For the interest of the TAG group:
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-1-20041028/             
> 137.62 KB (140,924 bytes)
>     http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/CR-xmlschema11-1-20090430/           
> 285.19 KB (292,037 bytes)
> 
> Why is XSD 1.1 Part 1 twice the number of characters compared 
> to XSD 1.0?  Both use UTF-8. (It presumably cannot be mostly 
> the change list of Annex G.)  Richer markup?

The number of characters in non-whitespace text nodes in the XHTML has
increased from 442541 to 827066, so yes, this is a genuine increase in the
length of the spec. However, length does not equal complexity.

Take a side-by-side look at section 3.2 for example (chosen at random):

- the table of contents for the section is more detailed

- the structure of the schema component is explained in a more structured
way (and one property - inheritable - is added)

- the relationship of the XML representation to the component model is
explained much more carefully

- there are some additional rules caused by the new targetNamespace
attribute

- an informal explanation of the validation rules has been added, to aid
understanding

- the concept of governing attribute declarations and governing type
declarations is introduced, mainly (IIRC) to define validation more
rigorously leaving less scope for interpretation

- PSVI contributions are explained much more clearly especially for the case
where attributes are validated by type

- extra section headings have been added to make it easier to refer to
locations in the document

Overall, this section has probably doubled in size, commensurate with the
document as a whole. Perhaps 10% of the increase is due to new facilities,
all the rest is motivated by a desire to explain more clearly and to make
the spec more readable. 

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/

Received on Wednesday, 20 May 2009 22:28:08 UTC