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"Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com> wrote:
| aray@nyct.net (Arjun Ray) writes:
|> Well, that's if one assumes there is a "the infoset" to be so
|> augmented.
|
| Fair enough. I'm using a more recent term to describe the actions of
| something that existed long before, and it reeks of anachronism.
Fair use, though. It's pretty clear what you meant, and not using the
term would have called for a whole bunch of words.
|> Actually, [modularization] isn't a problem with DTDs as much as it's
|> a problem with the (implicit) validation model. [...] it's possible
|> to assume the moral equivalent of (#DONTCARE) as the content model of
|> some elements, and thus delegate subtree validation constraints to
|> other DTDs.
|
| I think this is a more complicated field. Modularization always is,
| and I was shocked to see the what lurks behind the TEI Pizza Chef.
Indeed, but that would be an example of what I meant by a DTD being (or
trying to be) comprehensive. That's the stumbling block: treating
validation of a document as a unitary exercise.
| Working with DocBook [...]
Another case in point, with a vengeance! If those PEs don't make one
woozy, I don't know what could. (Murray Altheim used the same style for
the XHTML stuff, to equally stupefying effect.)
|> That said, *XML* DTDs are utterly crippled in relation to SGML DTDs,
|> and even those lack expressive power in some areas.
|
| I've only read SGML DTDs, never created them, so I'm definitely not
| qualified to comment.
Well, even the simple things, which make XML DTDs horrifyingly verbose.
Consider, for example, the latest flap with IDs. XML can't do this:
<!ATTLIST #ALL id ID #IMPLIED>
You can't even gather all elements into a PE and do this
<!ATTLIST (%allelems;) id ID #IMPLIED>
The sheer insanity of having to write out separate ATTLISTs for simple
basic stuff speaks for itself, although at times I think the reason that
this has not been fixed in XML is that the politically correct view of
DTDs is to deprecate them, so it certainly helps to make them a laughing
stock.
Another example would be the XML spec not picking up the DATA declared
value type from the WebSGML TC. ("Compatibility" with old-fashioned SGML
is another convenient shibboleth when demonizing origins is the real name
of the game.)
As for SGML itself not being expressive in some areas, I mean that the
WebSGML TC, although quite revolutionary and generous, may not have gone
far enough - and had XML not been frozen by W3C Process, it could have
been the vehicle for constructive pushback to WG8 for the next TC (yet
another comforting myth is that those folks would have resisted stodgily.)
|> If you mean things like PE games to shoehorn colonified names, that's a
|> colossal waste of time and energy indeed.
|
| That's a particular case of perverse brilliance. I'm amazed that the
| loopholes for making it work proved usable, but it's no fun to work
| through loopholes.
If only Sufficient Ingenuity were self-limiting...
|
