Re: suggest validator prefer URI to FPI

Hi Björn, Terje,

> * Dan Connolly wrote:
> >I'm interested to know if others find the arguments in
> >  http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#uri-benefits
> >persuasive or not; i.e. whether they agree with me that
> >the markup validation service should prefer URIs to FPIs.
>
> Two rather unrelated questions. The section you cite discusses good
> practise for "web agents" when providing resources, not whether XML
> processors should prefer system identifiers over public identifiers
> when resolving external entities.

I think DanC's point was that since URIs are preferred to FPIs in the
Web Architecture, the Markup Validator should always include them in the
validation step, the point being not that it should always dereference
them, but rather that, since (HTTP) URIs can be dereferenced, processed
by various tools, etc, "validating" their usage in the Doctype sounds
like a useful feedback to the document creators.

Taking a practical example:
- if the FPI and the System ID differs, it's probably a good idea to
tell the user
- if the FPI and the System ID differs, it's probably a good idea to use
the System ID to check the document instead of the FPI, since that's
what an agent that wouldn't know the FPI would do

What would be the drawbacks in terms of user experiences/implementations
against this approach?

Dom
-- 
Dominique Hazaël-Massieux - http://www.w3.org/People/Dom/
W3C/ERCIM
mailto:dom@w3.org