xml-dev - RE: RELAX to ISO

["B. Tommie Usdin" <btusdin@mulberrytech.com>]

Dylan Walsh wrote:

>Maybe it is a mistaken impression. However I've never seen any big XML vs.
>SGML debates, or any disgruntled SGML'ers flaming XML.

You won't see any such debates because there isn't a problem.  Nobody 
(well, practically nobody except some over-zealous marketers) is 
telling people who want to use SGML that they can't.  XML is not a 
replacement for SGML, it is something new that provides an attractive 
technology option for many people.  XML has what most people need in 
a markup metalanguage most of the time.  And that's wonderful!  And 
for requirements not met by XML there's SGML.


>  ... Would there ever be a case where
>someone starting a brand new project today, with no need for any legacy
>support, would choose to use SGML over XML, because of some of the culled
>functionality is useful/needed?

There are indeed people starting new markup applications today who 
are choosing to use SGML instead of XML.  I know some new users of 
SGML who chose it because, after deciding to use XML, they found that 
they were uncomfortably limited.  When they explained what they 
wanted to do, they learned that what they wanted were some SGML 
features, and they switched from calling their projects XML to SGML.

Among the things I know they are using are:
  - richer content models (inclusions, exclusions, and the & operator)
  - flexibility in redefining parts of the language (such as the delimiters)
  - external entity references in attribute content

We have seen, even on this list, people who really wanted the & 
operator (in fact, that seems to be the intent of a model you posted 
on 21 Jul 2000).

-- Tommie
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B. Tommie Usdin                        mailto:btusdin@mulberrytech.com
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