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   Re: [xml-dev] XML compatibility with SGML (was Re: [xml-dev] WD for Name

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On Thu, Apr 04, 2002 at 08:34:46AM -0500, Seairth Jacobs wrote:
> One of the things I undersand to be true about XML-1.0 is that it is a
> subset of SGML such that any SGML processor can understand and XML document
> as-is.  If XML Nnamespaces-1.1 were to be joined to XML-1.1, what does this
> mean about SGML compatibility?  Is this even a consideration for future
> versions of XML?  Or is the issue of compatibility only concerned with
> well-formedness? (sorry, I know little about SGML itself.)

In general, namespaces and DTDs do not play very well together.  But 
in a restricted sense, they can be made to cooperate.

See SVG for an example of an XML vocabulary that uses DTDs and
namespaces.  It's not a generalized application of namespaces+DTDs, 
but it does show that the two technologies *can* be interoperable to
a limited degree.  I'd be very surprised if an SVG document cannot
be validated by an SGML parser.

Over the last 5 years, SGML compatibility has been a significant
issue to a small minority of XML users.  Those who still require
it will continue to have interoperability with XML 1.0 and SGML,
even if (when?) XML 1.0+epsilon breaks SGML compatibility.

That's a fair trade.

Z.





 

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