[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [xml-dev] Re: determining ID-ness in XML
At 9:49 AM +1100 11/12/01, Marcus Carr wrote:
>What if they do want to but are not able to?
Then we can't fix it for them, and I also mean we can't fix it for
them by using a processing instruction instead of an attribute either.
> I'm not being deliberately obtuse - I
>just don't buy the idea that this is a simple matter of choice. You
>seem happy to
>marginalise the largest and most complex XML implementations (since
>they'd be the
>hardest to change) - I'm not satisfied that's the right thing to do.
>There's no
>point in telling me over and over that they should just update the
>DTD. They can't.
>
I'm willing to believe they can't update their DTD, but if they can't
update their DTD I don't believe they can update their processing
software to support a new PI either. The DTD is the simplest thing to
change in this case.
In another thread you just wrote:
The example of a bank was used earlier - here are three reasons that they would
refuse to add the attribute to their DTD:
a) it invalidates all of my existing data
b) I will need to upgrade the software that [insert number here] people are
using
c) I have no easy way of guaging the impact on the transition into
my backend
database
Your points b and c apply equally to adding a processing instruction.
The only thing PIs would give instead of an attribute is validity.
The cost of the changing the software is the same with a PI or an
attribute. The fear of problems that may arise when this new stuff
gets dumped into the existing database is the same.
--
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
+-----------------------+------------------------+-------------------+
| The XML Bible, 2nd Edition (Hungry Minds, 2001) |
| http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/books/bible2/ |
| http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764547607/cafeaulaitA/ |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
| Read Cafe au Lait for Java News: http://www.cafeaulait.org/ |
| Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/ |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+