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5/17/2002 11:02:15 AM, "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com> wrote:
> If you believe the REST contingent,
> SOAP has flaws.
I'm talking about SOAP the generic data exchange
wire format, not the SOAP RPC paradigm in all its
glory. At worst, the REST people think that
SOAP-the-wire-format is un-necessary.... but
even a REST-ful application that needs to send
a serialization of a network data structure might
well find SOAP's encoding rules useful. That would
be very difficult to do with CSV, and DTDs offer more
or less nothing to help.
So, my answer to the
"why did SOAP need more than CSV but less than
all of XML 1.0" is that "XML 1.0 - DTDs" hits the sweet spot
in a lot of applications -- enough constraint to
be useful and so that off the shelf tools can do
lots of the dirty work, but not so much that
it's hard to force arbitrary data into the model.
> XML 2.0 will be a botch if it
>is too complicated or too simpleminded, but DTDs
>have proven their value.
Sure, but as a layer on top of "XML 2.0 Core"
(if it looks at all like the skunkworks
proposal) that is useful for document apps
and legacy compatibility. The people who just need
well-formedness can use the Core "raw". Those that
need what RELAX NG or W3C XSD have to offer can use
them without paying for the DTD stuff they don't need.
Those that need their own semantics, or those who want
to build new generalized semantics, can do so on top
of the core as well.
It's Extreme Specwriting -- do the simplest thing that
could be agreed to (XML 1.0), learn from experience/testing,
and refactor -- make sure that the base classes contain
only what is universally needed. It's clear that elements,
attributes, text, and namespaces are more or less universal,
so they belong at the lowest level. DTDs, data types,
content model constraints, etc. all have their uses and
belong in the hierarchy, but not in the base.
Wait a minute, DTD's *are* useful! We should
all just define entities containing our pet rants on this
topic and reference them when appropriate. That would save lots of typing,
if only DTDs were supported in email tools :~)
"Len said:
| &LenDTDRant;
As I've argued repeatedly, &MikeCommonXMLRant;
Which reminds me, &ExtremeSpecwritingRant;
Oops, &FrequentRantsMetarant;"
|
