> -----Original Message-----
>
From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@textuality.com]
> Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 2:03 AM
> To:
xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: XML Blueberry
>
>
>
This Blueberry issue is not a slam-dunk either way, it's
> a genuinely
hard issue. Actually it's several genuinely
> hard issues in an
unattractive package, namely:
>
> - the NEL character as a
line separator
> - the proper relationship to Unicode
>
- how to version XML
This was a great summary of the dilemmas
here, and
I agree with almost all of it. I would tip the verdict
very
slightly the other way, in favor of an XML revision,
because I see one point
differently from Tim:
> To cast
it in the starkest possible light: Is it a
> reasonable trade-off to say
that we will live with
> an incorrect interpretation of Unicode in certain
specific
> areas, with the consequences of complicating the lives
of
> mainframe users and impoverishing the tools available to
>
worthy users of certain minority languages, to achieve
> the benefit of
keeping XML monolithic and unitary? Yes,
> it's reasonable.
Is XML really "monolithic and unitary"? I'm
pretty sure that Tim
and I have been around on this before, but it seems to
me that "XML"
is actually more fragmented than monolithic: The 1.0 spec, of
course, distinguishes "validating" and "non-validating" parsers. A closer
reading shows that non-validating parsers may or may not do anything useful with
some things like external parsed entities, so we have another axis of
cleavage. Then we have namespace-aware vs non-namespace-aware processors,
and ancillary specs that provide their own "spin" to namespaces (DOM
L2 treats prefixes as "syntax sugar"; Canonical XML and XPath/XSLT treat them as
significant). Now we have schema-aware vs non-schema-aware processors;
XInclude and XLink support/non-support will make life even more interesting when
they become Recommendations.
On top of all this, we have significant practical issues with conformance, e.g. the recent discussion in the thread starting at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200106/msg00616.html on the handling of parameter entities by different tools, and the less than perfect performance on the OASIS test suite by most parsers (see http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/05/10/conformance/conformance.html).
So, as a purely pragmatic matter, I'm not at all convinced that the Blueberry requirements would detract significantly from the objective of keeping XML "monolithic and unitary".