[www-xml-xinclude-comments] <none>

[Forwarding some XInclude comments from TBL that were sent to the
wrong comment list.  paul]

>From: "Tim Berners-Lee" <timbl@w3.org>
>To: <www-xml-linking-comments@w3.org>
>Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 13:36:55 -0500
>X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3110.5
>Subject: Off the cuff comments on XInclude
>
>A few comments on http://www.w3.org/XML/Group/2000/03/WD-xinclude-20000314
>
>I feel the fact that XInclude is declared to be "orthogonal" to parsing and
>validation is cheating.  Validation, I assume, can in practice be carried
>out on the
>document as a string of bytes or on the infoset. The validity of documents
>before and after
>XInclusion are both interesting, but after is more fundamental.  There isn't
>much point in validating something when you have no idea what is going to
>x-included.
>One needs to be careful that this specification redefined validity (schema
>or DTD) to apply to the FINAL infoset.  This is the only thing which makes
>sense.
>
>
>This suggests to me that issuing an XML 1.1 which puts XML, NS and Xinclude
>into a single framework would probably be useful to the user community.
>After all, if you are using XInclude, processing of it is unlikely to be
>optional.  We are raising the bar for XML processors - rightfully so IMHO.
>
>2. Requirements
>
>"The result of an inclusion shall accommodate XML 1.0 and XML Namespaces".
>I am not sure what "accommodate" means. Provide a living space for?
>
>3. Processing Model.
>
>"the base URI be surfaced" ?  Would I understand that if I read the DOM
>carefully?
>
>3.2 The parse attribute is quite fundamental.  When an attribute totally
>changes the effect of the element, I would prefer making 3
>different elements, xinclude:text, xinclude:xml and xinclude:cdata. (or
>xml:include-text, xml:include, and xml:include-cdata)
>
>
>The spec says, "Any xinclude:include elements in this infoset are
>recursively
>processed" but this applies of course only to XML parsing.
>
>
>Issue 03-nesting-optimization uses the term "knitted".  which is not one I
>use every day for documents.  What is "knitting a document"?  I therefore
>don't
>understand the issue.
>
>3.1 Document nodes
>
>change: "The XML declaration in the included document is ignored. The
>document type declaration information item in the included document is
>ignored." to:
>"Any XML declaration in the included document is ignored. Any document type
>declaration information item in the included document is ignored." as these
>are optional and need not be present in the first place.
>
>
>--
>
>The fact that the top-level document element does not appear is IMHO a
>problem, in that you may well want to include it!  In future namespaces
>there my be many information-containing options for the document  node.
>
>Also, this is unclean.  It is a an unnecessary special case.  The algorithm
>is to include a referenced element unless it is a document element, in which
>case include the content.  maybe it would be cleaner to split xml:include
>into xml:include (referenced language element) and xml:include-contents
>(contents of referenced element).
>
>--
>
>3.3.2 "If the document element in the source infoset is an xinclude:include,
>it is an error to attempt to replace it with more than a single element."
>That is unfair on the include processor: I would say it is an error on the
>part of the author of the
>source.  (Actually IMHO this points to an arbitrary constraint in XML that a
>document should have only one document node but let's not go into that!)
>
>
>--
>
>Issue 32:  No, I would suggest that attribute-level inclusion not be
>provided.   This spec is simple as it is.  It would be complicated if it
>allowed attribute inclusion.
>
>--
>
>Issue 31:  This points toward an XML 1.5  = XML + NS + XInclude level spec.
>
>
>--
>
>Validation - "processor will validate"    (This process-oriented
>specification is very traditional in SGML but it makes for bad specs IMHO.
>Don't define what processors do, define what things *are* and what they
>*mean*.
>Why should an XInclude processor validate its output? It may ant to process
>the document without validating it.
>
>What is a   dtd-valid XML document? What is a schema-valid document? Answer:
>the result of validation after all Xinclusion.  This specification redefines
>the meaning of a valid document for any document containing  an element
>defined here.
>
>
>Tim BL
>wearing no hat

Received on Tuesday, 21 March 2000 16:03:21 UTC