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"Champion, Mike" wrote:
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Elliotte Rusty Harold [mailto:elharo@metalab.unc.edu]
> > Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2001 9:49 AM
> > To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> > Subject: RE: [xml-dev] XML and mainframes, yet again (was RE:
> > [xml-dev]
> > So me comments on the 1.1 draft)
> >
> > It doesn't matter what the Unicode spec or any other spec says should
> > be done with this character. What matters is what software actually
> > does with it.
>
> OK, I understand, and there's a lotta confusing legacy junk in the XML specs
> that few implement properly I'd like to jettison too. In some very real
> sense, the specs ARE what people implement and use, so in the long run we
> will get something simple and useable whatever the W3C and Unicode
> consortium says to the contrary.
>
> BUT simply accepting the notion that "What matters is what software actually
> does" is the first step down the road to a very frightful Hell in which Bill
> Gates and Steve Ballmer are the head demons.
> I have no illusions that NEL's and accomodating EBCDIC editors will be among
> the survivors, but for the moment they are the lesser of two evils, if the
> other is "XML is whatever Microsoft says it is."
What I can see happening is a situation where most of the community are
using 1.0 software and exchange 1.0 documents because they have no need
for NEL or non-ACSII characters in names. Occasionally, these users'
tools will break on (or refuse to parse, depending on how 'draconian'
their implementation is) 1.1 documents they get from one vendor's
customers. Do we really want to fork XML?
Worse yet, that vendor could claim is that it's _everyone else_ who is
non standards compliant. Reminds me of another vendor's behavior.
Ari.
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