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On 24 Feb 2003 at 8:47, John Cowan wrote:
> Mike Champion scripsit:
>
> > It seems to me that Sean raises a more profound issue. If XML has brought
> > real interoperability benefits despite widespread non-conformance to the
> > spec (whether we call the non-conformance "bugs" or "features"), then the
> > argument that the benefits are threatened by non-conformant implementations
> > seems highly suspect.
>
> It's not about non-conformant implementations. It's about non-conformant
> specifications: i.e. subset specifications that claim to be the real thing.
> The Sun specification makes it impossible to use a conformant XML parser as
> a J2ME implementation.
I agree. The bugs that Sean has found in various XML implementations,
one assumes, were found because he was trying to use the features in
question. So one could also assume there is a use for them. The XML
specification gives Sean and others a way to encourage / force (pick
your favourite verb) vendors and implementors to fix those bugs and
allow use of those features.
It's easy to imagine a world in 5 years where there is a subsetted
version of XML with another acronym that is the hype generator of the
day, and the only people who use XML are those who need the extra
features (just as there are people today who use SGML for the extra
features it has). What would be a botch would be for it to be called
XML. If it's different, it should have a different acronym.
Lauren
--
Lauren Wood, Chair, XML 2003
Information soon at www.xmlconference.org
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