OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

 


 

   Re: [xml-dev] Special XML parsers

[ Lists Home | Date Index | Thread Index ]

From: "Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>

> What purpose does posting such comments serve besides acting as 
> an advertisement of your biases? 

Without going into the merits, I guess the writer was referring
to the added requirements made by an early MS XML parser 
notoriously including that namespaces had to be #FIXED. [1]
So people had to alter their DTDs to work with MS XML. 

Still, I don't see that only Microsoft developers should take it as a salutory 
plea not to embrace and [restrict|extend] (i.e. to make the default operation
of a parser less or more than the spec says, perhaps out of entirely non-sinister
motives), because it is a good thing for all developers to keep in mind.   

(For example, IIRC James Clark's expat could also be criticized on 
similar grounds: it did not handle parameter entities: however this was 
clearly documented and expat was exploratory.  The cumulative 
effect of expat and MSXML was to cripple the effectiveness of DTDs: 
I think this initial unreliability held XML innovation back a year or two
--and created the RELAX NG-sized hole that WXS sat in--because it 
prevented the basic software engineering requirement of testable data integrity:-- validation.  It is ironic that at the same time as unit testing was becoming 
popular, the leading XML parsers did not provide reliable validation. )


Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

[1] http://www.xml.com/pub/a/1999/11/parser/?page=2





 

News | XML in Industry | Calendar | XML Registry
Marketplace | Resources | MyXML.org | Sponsors | Privacy Statement

Copyright 2001 XML.org. This site is hosted by OASIS