xml-dev - Re: Proposal Announcement - XML DTDs to XML docs

[Paul Prescod <papresco@technologist.com>]

Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> Parameter entities are admittedly my least favorite part of XML, a necessary
> evil and a powerful tool.  There may well be limits on how well they can map
> to this model - but is that a significantly worse limitation than the
> abolition of the & content model?  

I don't believe that I have ever written a DTD that *did* use the &
occurrence indicator in a content model.

I also don't believe that I have ever written a DTD (to be used more than
once) that did NOT use parameter entities.

If you invent enough subclassing/inheritance/content model reuse features,
you may be able to get away without them. But you can't just take them out
if you expect people to do serious document modelling in XML.

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

"A writer is also a citizen, a political animal, whether he likes it or 
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