xml-dev - RE: ubiquitous XML?

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

That's a hint as to the direction you would 
want to take such development in.  Sure, formalness 
is not exclusive to a grammar-based language.  And you name 
a weakness of the current tool.  Ok so far.  More?

Mind you that I am not trying to say "DTDs Forever", just 
that I am wary of any proposal to change the underpinning 
architecture without solid reasons to do it and solid 
proposals for how it could be done.  Vendors can by dint of 
penetration undo a lot of work for a lot of people and 
before this list takes them to the woodshed over it, 
a vendor has to do a better job of explaining and proposing, 
not just dropping a hint in a thread.  Enough of that.

It really is a pain in the ass for companies to take 
it on themselves to emit specs, call them standards, 
and use false momentum to drive out working product with 
new-to-be purchased product.   If XML is to be 
changed in any fundamental way at this point, there 
has to be better than a good reason.  There has 
to be fire, flood and locusts; otherwise, costs can't be 
made up for the sake of trivial innovations.

MIS courses in the US are typically (not all) 
the trade school level of a CS education.  They are  
focused on tools, tasks and techniques, not 
on erudition, theory, and formal specification. 

That said, mountains are moved with bulldozers, 
not teaspoons.  The right tool for the right job 
is still the best approach.  Tell us more about 
why DTDs have to "go away".

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick JELLIFFE [mailto:ricko@geotempo.com]

Path=based assertion languages such as Schematron or Xlinkit are just as
susceptible to formal definitions as DTDs are, especially if we take
"extensibility" seriously and start from open content models.  One of
the deficiencies of grammar-based systems, for example, is that they do
not provide enough information to let you know which elements can be
used in external vocabularies and which are compound (i.e. which have
upward-going cohesion).  

All schema languages are partial. Some are more difficult than others,
and this difficulty can hit some cultures or technical specializations
more than others. I am interested to know if formal grammars are taught
as a standard part of US MIS courses (not computer science courses).