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On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
> At 9:27 AM -0500 11/25/03, Betty Harvey wrote:
>
>
> > SGML Problems
> >
> >. High initial investment
> >. Complexity
> >. Too many options/features
> >. Vendors supported a subset of features
> >. Applications weren't portable because of various feature sets
> >. Lack of intuitive end-user software
> > Fear of "pointy brackets" (<>)
>
> If you ask the question of XML, and not XML schema, then we're doing
> much better. The only ones that you could even argue haven't been met
> are "Too many options/features" and "Lack of intuitive end-user
> software", but you could also argue the other way on those points. I
> do think basic XML 1.0 has too many options, but I don't find the
> problem crippling. And end-user software may have taken a little
> while to get here but now it's popping up all over the place, even in
> Microsoft Office.
If DTD's are what we work with, I would agree that we have made it easier.
However, I believe that DTDs may be on their deathbed and are now
considered deprecated or legacy. The reality is that most organizations
are using schema's for all "new" projects. The U.S. Government recommends
the use of W3C Schemas
<quote source="Federal XML Developer's Guide">
Only ISO 8879 Document Type Definitions and W3C Schema Part
1:Structures and W3C Schema Part 2:Datatypes SHALL be used to define
XML document structures. Developers of data-oriented schemas in DTD
syntax SHOULD migrate to XML Schemas. Developers MAY elect to use DTDs
for markup of data that is strictly document-oriented (sentence,
paragraph, chapter, appendix, etc.). However, the XML Schema language
is the preferred method.
</quote>
Policy makers don't always understand the technical implications of the
policies they are developing. This thread peaked my interest because I
was provided a schema that validated with two parsers, failed validation
with 3 parsers. Passed parsing with another application but the
application 'blew up' when trying to validate or parse a document of the
schema. I was also moving between MS Windows and Linux, as well as using
XSV at the W3C site. All parsers that fail give me a different error
message.
Different parsers also handle namespaces differently also. Some see it as
'text' which is the way the namespace spec says it should, while other
parsers go looking for the URI in the namespace and if it doesn't find it
fails.
My initial question is still unanswered - which W3C schema can I trust to
validate a schema (I will take 95%)? Right now I don't have confidence in
any of the schema parsers. I want a parser that provides me the same
amount of confidence that I have in James Clark NSGMLS.
Betty
--
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Betty Harvey | Phone: 410-787-9200 FAX: 9830
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
harvey@eccnet.com | Washington,DC XML Users Grp
URL: http://www.eccnet.com | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug
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