xml-dev - Re: Namespaces, Architectural Forms, and Sub-Documents

[Paul Prescod <papresco@technologist.com>]

David Megginson wrote:
> 
> For XML to work on the desktop rather than just on the server, it will
> also need some kind of packaging standard -- a way for all of the
> entities (XML and non-XML) that make up a document to be edited,
> stored, and shipped together, but easily broken apart again when
> necessary.  I'm suggesting that once such a standard exists, and once
> there are tools to use it, including subdocuments in XML will be as
> easy as (and hopefully, much less buggy than) including Excel
> spreadsheets in Word documents.

It is only easy to do this with Word because Word manages it for you. I
don't intend to change to a dedicated XML editor, do you?
 
>  > Let me put it this way: do you feel that the creators of DocBook,
>  > TEI and HTML were mistaken by including table models rather than
>  > forcing their users to use subdocs?
> 
> Of course not.  Different DTDs will include different levels of base
> markup, depending on their areas of application -- we're dealing only
> with the case when people want to use structures not defined in the
> DTD itself.

No, the question is *how do we construct DTDs*? Let me try that quote
again:

"We envision applications of XML in which a document instance may
contain markup defined in multiple schemas. These schemas may have been
authored independently. One motivation for this is that writing good
schemas is hard, so it is beneficial to reuse parts from existing,
well-designed schemas. Another is the advantage of allowing search
engines or other tools to operate over a range of documents that vary in
many respects but use common names for common element types. "

Let me emphasize: "writing schemas is hard, so it is beneficial to reuse
parts from existing schemas." The goal is thus to construct DTDs from
smaller ones. (e.g. HTML + CALS + MATHML or TEILITE + JAVA + XLL or ...)

 Paul Prescod
--
http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco



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