- From: Champion, Mike <Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com>
- Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:27:15 -0400
- To: xml-dist-app@w3.org
> -----Original Message----- > From: Andrew Layman [mailto:andrewl@microsoft.com] > Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 2:39 PM > To: xml-dist-app@w3.org > Subject: RE: Can SOAP be called a XML protocol ? [was: why no doc type > declaration and PIs in SOAP?] > > > I agree with Eric van der Vlist's mail. Subsetting XML for > SOAP starts on a slippery slope to having multiple, incompatible dialects > of XML. If a profile of XML is thought needed for certain classes of device, then > this should be explicitly addressed as an XML issue, not a SOAP issue. I agree in principle, but the W3C has thus far shown no interest in refactoring / subsetting / profiling XML. SOAP 1.1 implicitly defines a subset of XML, and that fact has hardly even been noticed. I don't think that puts us on a slippery slope, I think it defines some solid footholds to ensure SOAP interoperability in a rather muddy environment: -- Full conformance with XML 1.0 by actual parsers is very rare -- Details of how the specs mesh with one another are murky and contentious (e.g., the DOM and XPath/XSLT data models, or the conceptions of namespaces in the namespace and schema specs, or what non-validating parsers are supposed to do with information in DTDs). -- Very few people even claim to understand what the "Post Schema Validation Infoset" really is, in what order operations are applied to produce it, and how it can serve as the foundation for a new generation of specs (e.g., XQuery). I'd be happy to have a quid pro quo with the XML Core folks -- you refactor XML+namespaces+xml:base into full/basic/tiny conformance levels, and we'll support those conformance levels in SOAP. Until then, I think the status quo -- with the error handling rules for DTDs and PIs clarified -- is best.
Received on Friday, 21 September 2001 15:27:16 UTC