RE: And the DTD says, "I'm NOT dead yet!!"

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

Thanks, John.  That explains it and 
why the interpretation sent to me that 
this was to be regarded as further evidence 
that DTDs are going away was in error.

Umm... the formal specification is 
informative?  That seems backward.  
Can you or anyone who cares to explain 
why that is the case since informative 
descriptions are typically non-binding? 
When doing a validation, I need to use 
the ROA that is binding.  Perhaps it 
is a legal tangle where in one process 
for applying the record (reading an ROA 
to determine rules for the implementation) 
the prose is binding, but in another process, 
(determining if a transaction content 
conforms), the informative description 
becomes normative for the transaction. 
Of course, it would need to be a complete 
description.  Ok.  I think I understand that.

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

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


-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:jcowan@reutershealth.com]

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

> That makes it easy to explain why the DTD 
> is there even if not why it is non-normative. 
> That still makes no sense to me.  

Two reasons: 1) it is incomplete 2) in W3C recommendations,
the prose is normative, the formal specification informative,
as a rule.


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