Re: XML Blueberry

[Wayne Steele <xmlmaster@hotmail.com>]

It seems like a reasonable work-around for this "problem" is to define a new 
character set - lets call it "E2" for now.

Mainframes reading something in the "E2" character set can just assume it's 
EBCDIC. Non-Mainframes reading something in "E2" can use their existing 
EBCDIC translation tables, except that the one troublesome EOL character is 
to be mapped to CR.

Any problems? You're already screwed if you don't understand the character 
encoding being used.

People who care about this nonsense can add this character set into their 
tables. People who don't care will never have to deal with it - they'll just 
reject documents encoded in "E2", as they don't support that character set.

I for one am much happier with character set churn than with XML 
Recommendation churn.

I don't blame the W3C for thinking about these things, and if there's going 
to be a new version of XML, then it makes sense to fix up some of these 
nits. I think the problem is the schedule.

I suggest the target Rec date for XML 1.1 should be December 2003; Five 
years after XML 1.0 became a Rec.

-Wayne Steele


>From: Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie>
>Reply-To: peter@silmaril.ie
>To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
>Subject: Re: XML Blueberry
>Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 22:38:59 +0100
>
>On Thu, 21 Jun 2001, you wrote:
> > The W3C XML Core Working Group has posted the first public draft of XML
> > Blueberry Requirements:
> >
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-xml-blueberry-req-20010620
> >
> > This is a proposal for a new BACKWARDS INCOMPATIBLE version of XML.
> > The specific goal is to address some shortcomings of the XML 1.0
> > character model relative to Unicode 3.1, as well as throwing a sop to
> > IBM.
>
>Elliotte voices some valid concerns.
>
>I see no justification for making a change to line-ends merely
>to accommodate legacy operating systems. The time to speak up
>on this was four years ago. If IBM is unwilling to bring its
>own systems into the 21st century, it cannot expect the rest of
>the world to repunch their cards for them.
>
>Can someone explain why the problems of accommodating the
>enlarged set of code points in U3.x cannot be solved by moving
>the fence in the SGML Declaration for XML?  A Technical
>Corrigendum to the 1.0 Spec could make clear that we should have
>worded it so that the permitted characters of XML are those
>non-control characters defined in Ux.y at any point in time
>(modulo whatever explicit exclusions). Or is there something
>worse going on here?
>
>///Peter
>--
>Bury me face down, "9" edge first.

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com