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

[Gavin Thomas Nicol <gtn@rbii.com>]

> > That said, few application deal with that model directly, and
> > there are a  number of slants one can take. Editing applications, for
> > example, really do  need to know about whitespace, attribute ordering,
>
> etc. etc.
>
> > etc. where most  data processing applications don't.
>
> C'mon, Gavin, you WERE right 4 years ago when you argued for an XML data
> model! <grin>.

I think you and I are (once again ;-)) in violent agreement. My point here is 
that most applications deal with something above the model... they layer 
their own semantics/organizational structures over it. Of course, they have 
to have something to add a layer over!

Anyway, my gut leads me away from negotiation (feature negotiation in parsers 
doesn't appear to be that widely used yet , is it?) as such, and more toward 
a smaller/clearer canonical model... or perhaps a couple of them. 

I guess another slant on negotiation would be something akin to the 
NodeFilter idea that essentially "normalized" the view for the particular 
application. Another slant would be to have different DocumentBuilder 
instances...