xml-dev - Re: XSchema Spec - Element Declarations (Section 2.2), Draft 5

[Peter Murray-Rust <peter@ursus.demon.co.uk>]

At 13:54 18/07/98 -0800, Carl Hage wrote:
>
>> The XSC:Root attribute provides authoring tools with a guide for which 
>> elements are likely root elements for documents.
>
>The semantics of the enumerated values is undefined. (A 1 word definition is 
>not suitable for a standard.) Clearly you have some specific ideas in mind. 
>There must be an unambiguous definition of the semantics, so developers who 
>create tools have a predictable behavior, and authors have guidelines as to 
>which choice is appropriate. Otherwise the attribute should be removed.

Thanks Carl,
	I think we would be flattered to think that XSchema was a 'standard' :-).
I appreciate the emphasis on documenting semantics (and behavior). This is
an area where I have often suggested that we need more help from the XML
specs. However in this case I suspect there is no behavior involved with
this attribute - it's merely a guide as to whether an author would be
advised to use  a particular element as a Root. In many domains this will
come down to ontological perceptions - for example, I would hesitate to
recommend that authors of CML documents should take *my* choices of Root as
the field is so new. In this case I suspect it is a rather fuzzy guide to
newcomers saying - "Suggest you start here" or "suggest you don't". I
suppose it is conceivable that a machine could provide useful navigation of
the XSchema starting at "recommended" and not starting at "unlikely".

	P.

Peter Murray-Rust, Director Virtual School of Molecular Sciences, domestic
net connection
VSMS http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/vsms, Virtual Hyperglossary
http://www.venus.co.uk/vhg

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