Re: [xml-dev] Interoperability

[mrossi@csc.com]

Hate to beat this old horse again, but these problems (and their solutions
to some extent) have been around for a long time. SGML handled link frailty
with PubIds. The XML interpretation seems to have lost something :-). This
is certainly a matter of implementation (and lack thereof) more than
specification. And anyone remember SDIF (SGML's little-known or implemented
solution to the packaging problem)? I'm not suggesting it should be used
now ( at least not without some major updates), but the problem has clearly
been recognized long ago. Why do we in fact continue to ignore it today?

Michael A. Rossi
Computer Sciences Corporation
mailto:mrossi@csc.com
856-983-4400 x4911


                                                                                                                   
                    Tim Bray                                                                                       
                    <tbray@textua        To:     xml-dev@lists.xml.org                                             
                    lity.com>            cc:                                                                       
                                         Subject:     Re: [xml-dev] Interoperability                               
                    11/14/01                                                                                       
                    04:04 PM                                                                                       
                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                   


All good points.  But I don't think they have much to do with
interoperability of XML.  You've pointed out what is a horrible
problem - the infrastructure has really lousy support for
dealing with multiple related resourcse that you need to
bring together to do a job.  There are little bits & pieces
of machinery around: multipart-mime, RDDL, etc.  Interestingly,
they tried to start a "packaging" activity up over at W3C but
it expired for lack of interest.

I've been kind of surprised that there isn't more energy
being pointed at this problem.  Still am. -Tim