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Re: [xml-dev] IDs considered harmful or why keys might be betterthanIDs...
On Tue, 2001-11-13 at 08:09, Jonathan Borden wrote:
> Being too quick to discard DTDs is the perfect example of the premature
> ejection of a core part of XML 1.0, at the same time piling on new
> 'features' for XML. The whole point is that one can _already_ implement
> in-line ID attribute declarations (using the internal DTD subset). As I
> recall, we have _already_ gone though a long process in an attempt to
> replace DTDs with some type of XML syntax, yet today we still are having
> these discussions. The ability to define an identifier unique within a
> document seems like a straightforward and reasonable requirement. Do XML
> Schema or RELAXNG solve this apparently simple problem in an equivalent
> fashion to the DTD?
>
> I think that XML 1.0 _taken as a whole_ is far better designed than most
> people realize, and what some people see as a feature to be discarded with
> their left hand, they seem to ask for in another form with their right hand.
> It is time to better use what we already _have_ which should get around the
> global problem of too many XML specifications that sort of but don't
> completely work together.
I think that perhaps you've misread my suggestion. I'd like to throw
away all of these approaches to external annotation of document instance
content, not merely replace one with another.
That'd leave us the document instance as primary, period. No need to
worry about internal vs. external subsets because some non-validating
parsers (perfectly legally) don't bother loading external resources, no
need to wonder whether the ID attributes in a document were identified
using a DTD or an XML Schema.
Instance supremacy, taken seriously, means never looking beyond the
document. Limiting and liberating at the same time.
--
Simon St.Laurent
"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue