Re: [xml-dev] Principles of XML design

[Peter Hunsberger <peter.hunsberger@gmail.com>]

On 5/6/05, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
> > > > Just out of interest: when are "users" going to be
> > switching between
> > > > parsers for a given application?
> > >
> > > Anyone moving their application from JDK 1.4 to JDK 1.5 is
> > switching between
> > > parsers, unless they go out of their way not to.
> >
> > Given the parser that ships with 1.4 I'd hope anyone who really cares
> > has gone out of their way to ensure that doesn't happen....
> 
> But 98% of users don't care and don't need to - that's the whole point.
> There are vast numbers of people who don't know what XML parser they are
> using, and that's exactly the way it should be.

Perhaps so, my point was, that as a _developer_ it would be
irresponsible to rely on having the default parser work the way you
expect.  For example, Xalan as it originally shipped with 1.4  had
bugs with name space support that we ran into.  For any reasonably
complex XML app. it seems to me that you need to control what parser
you're using (to say nothing about the major release of the JDK).

Given the complexity of the specs. it seems to me that having every
parser agree with each other 100% on how everything is supposed to be
implemented is never going to happen.  As a result, as a developer you
likely need to know what parser you're using...

-- 
Peter Hunsberger