RE: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML

["Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:clbullar@ingr.com]
> Sent: Friday, November 02, 2001 9:18 AM
> To: Christopher R. Maden; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: RE: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML
> 
> 
> Yes that is the case.  SOAP refusing to acknowledge it 
> is a W3C problem.  They don't have the authority or perhaps 
> the will to make their own specifications interoperable 
> and well, so much for their standards.

I'm not sure I follow.  First, SOAP 1.2 is not a done deal; it's under
development in public discussions on the xml-dist-app@w3.org mailing list.
Anyone who feels strongly that SOAP 1.2 does the world a dis-service by
discouraging DTDs and PIs in SOAP messages is urged to share their reasoning
with the working group.  The arguments for keeping out DTDs and PIs are all
ABOUT interoperability; the 99.99% of of Web developers who are not SGML
veterans or conversant with hypermedia theory have found these to be agents
of all sorts of interop problems, and so the various SOAP formulators have
thought best to keep them out of the *subset* of XML that SOAP recognizes.
Counter-arguments -- those that reflect the requirement that SOAP is
intended for communications between all sorts of devices from wristwatches
to mainframes, anyway --  are welcome.
  
Also, saying that SOAP problems are "a W3C problem" is like saying that
IIS's vulnerability to worms is a Microsoft problem.  Literally true, but
not helpful in a world where this stuff is being hyped everywhere, given
away, promoted as the salve for all pain, etc.  We complain about the stuff
in Windows or XML that is a "done deal" and all we can do is whine about it.
Since SOAP is not yet a done deal, if you can't live with it, whine now, or
we shall all truly whine later.