RE: attribute order (RE: Syntax Sugar and XML information models)

[Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@ebt.com>]

Rick says:
> Now, this is not to say that a system could not, for process-internal an
> non-exported data, order the attributes as a way to implement some useful
> function (e.g. c14n testing, or that the first position in the attribute
> array is the ID if any exists to allow fixed-index lookups, or 
> that invalid attributes go to the end, or that attributs are ordered 
> by namespace to allow searching, etc.) but that is very different from 
> the order being significant at the infoset level.

The general theme here, of course, is that generally, validation and
processing are two logically orthogonal things, and that more information
is needed for validation that for processing.... and that validation
usually occurs during system design and test, rather than at runtime.

I think that the multiple schema languages are an indication that people
have very different sets of requirements. As more and more people start
creating "application profiles" of XML (not using entities in B2B for
example), the set of tests for validity will increase... and the tools
will need to change accordingly... if only for QA purposes.