RE: more grist

[Ben Trafford <ben@legendary.org>]

At 11:16 AM 3/1/2001 -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>2.  The rules for extending the privileged
>vocabularies or adding to their number are
>not known at this time and may never be.
>Since XML is W3C property, I assume the
>same means to choose means prevail.

         I think Len has hit on the exact nail, here. InfoSet has no 
standard extension modules. For that matter, two things have occurred to me 
in my consideration of the InfoSet's problems:

         1) InfoSet has no standardized extension mechanism. Kinda defeats 
the purpose of extensibility, doesn't it?
         2) InfoSet has no conception of scaled conformance. In other 
words, a base InfoSet that describes XML 1.0, with optional additions for 
other XML vocabularies. Such conformance levels could be tied together for 
specs that have dependencies. For example, if you were making an InfoSet to 
define XSLT, you would, by definition, extend the InfoSet that describes 
XPath, and so forth.

         As Len and some others know, I'm working on a set of documents 
tentatively titled "Proc-X" (pronounced Pross-Ex). It includes Info-X (an 
InfoSet replacement), Object-X (an API), and some other tools based around 
it. It'll be run out of www.proc-x.org, once I get my server ready to 
handle it. If anybody's interested in playing, drop me a private email, and 
I'll add you to the upcoming mailing list on the topic.

         Generally, I'm doing this because I'm finding the recent XML 
family of specs frustrating, incomplete, and poorly organized, especially 
in terms of interdependences. My intention is to see the tools that come 
out of Proc-X to be as compliant to standards (such as W3C specs, SAX and 
TREX) as possible...at least, in terms of being able to talk to them, and 
from them. I don't know if this work will go anywhere, or not, but it's 
interesting to me, and perhaps to others.

         I'll post updates to this list on important news coming out of 
Proc-X, as it happens. I will endeavour not to spam. ;^)

--->Ben