xml-dev - Re: X-Schema

[Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>]

Steven Livingstone wrote:
> 
> I for one hope that the final version is close to the XML DR as they are a
> lot more intuitive and easier to use than DTD's 

I would be curious to hear your opinion on why XML-syntax schemas are so
much easier.

My observation is that XML Data Reduce Schemas are only easier than DTDs
for the first week at which point they become harder to read, to
understand and to maintain. They are, however, easier to parse. My
inclination is to write off the claims that XML-syntax schemas are so much
easier as merely bias against the syntactically unfamiliar, similar to
parentheses and whitespace paranoia. At the end of a day of training
(brainwashing) my students usually say: "Why would I spend twenty lines of
XML syntax saying what a DTD can say in one line?"

I am genuinely interested in improving XML usability, however, so I would
like to hear counter-arguments.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

[Woody Allen on Hollywood in "Annie Hall"]
Annie: "It's so clean down here."
Woody: "That's because they don't throw their garbage away. They make 
        it into television shows."



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