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

[Dan Vint <dvint@slip.net>]

> 
> It was in the context of discussing X3D modularity.  I posted 
> Rick Jeliffe's URL for his article on modularizing 
> XHTML.  XHTML's techniques were applied to X3D.  
> Now, as schemas are available, the same thing will 
> be done most likely.  Someone found your article and 
> sent it along.
> 
> It is not that DTDs are non-normative for SGML; it is 
> that the DTD provided in the schema annex is non-normative. 
> Why is that?

I wonder about that as well. One of the benefits here is the abitly to
use any tool with an XML parser and this DTD to be able to at least write
and manage the Schema design. Without this sort of tool, you endup having to
write tools that specifically understand everything about the spec. I'm 
assuming that  XSLT tools have got a hardwired "DTD" in them because everything
XSLT can do can't be expressed in XML - this is sad because now every fix or
change to XSLT requres code to be written to at least understand the XSLT 
format/features (yes code would have to be written to implement them anyway, but
you could at least create stylesheets and validate them). Because we don't
have a DTD for XSLT I pretty much need tools that are built for XSLT to write
a stylesheet, where I might have been able to use standard XML editors to
build the stylesheet. 

Question: Will schemas be able to capture all the features
and functionality in XSLT? might we see a normative Schemas for XLST to manage
them? Are there features in the XSLT model that we should be looking to
implement?

To me that is a problem with the XSLT design (an irritation mainly) that at 
least currently doesn't exist for schemas, but it would be nice is the Schema 
DTD was normative to say that any document I create to that DTD is a valid
Schema because it conforms and validates against it. Now it is sort of a weak
assurance of anything and to me implies that I have to do something more to 
make sure my Scheama is good.

..dan

> 
> Len Bullard
> Intergraph Public Safety
> clbullar@ingr.com
> http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard
> 
> Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
> Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean B. Palmer [mailto:sean@mysterylights.com]
> 
> > The article doesn't disturb me.  It was sent
> > to me from a different list discussing schemas
> > as "food for thought".
> 
> May I enquire as to what list? It seems odd to me that someone should use
> this article as any form of discussion point except for that quote of Mr.
> Connolly's...but I'd like to know within what context it was used...
> 
> > 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.
> 
> I'm quite sure what you're implying there...DTDs are non normative? Huh?
> Forgive my ignorance, but I thought that the DTD format was laid out in the
> SGML ISO specification...probably not.
>