xml-dev - Re: Handheld computers

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: Matthew Gertner <matthew@praxis.cz>

>You forgot:
>
>4 - CDATA is redundant, entities are a less elegant solution to various
>problems that could be solved with XLink and/or schemas, processing
>instructions and comments would be better structured using normal
markup
>and notations are just weird mime types. These features increase
>complexity without adding significant value and only found their way
>into XML in the first place because certain vested interests wanted
them
>to ease the migration path from SGML to XML.

Vested interests?  Ah hear we go again: XML 1.0 as free-thinking XML
turks fighting the crusty old SGML guard.  The idea that easing the
migration path from "SGML" to "SGML-on-the-Web" is bad is laughable:
that is what XML was supposed to do honey!  That was its main job, not
some hijacking by moustachioed villians or over-protective priests.

CDATA is not redundant, becuase XML is a markup language: a markup
language has the definite requirement that it should have some features
to allow pre-existing test to be marked up easily.  The alternatives of
" and ' as attribute value delimiters are another example: as I
mentioned, they are no only useful for embedding markup but many other
kinds of computer text.  XHTML has
    <script><![CDATA[[
    ]]></script>
as a notable example.

As for XLink and Schemas (and XInclude aka SNIP), there will be no
guarantee that receiving software can process them either, so they
cannot be any more reliable than entities.

Rick Jelliffe


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