Re: [xml-dev] Victory has been declared in the schema wars ...

[Henri Sivonen <hsivonen@iki.fi>]

On Nov 30, 2006, at 12:01, Jirka Kosek wrote:

> You need schema for dozen of other things than validation. For  
> example,
> XML editors can be driven by schema to provide more comfortable data
> entry to users.

Why does an editing schema need to be frozen and not be customizable  
as well?

One thing that I have learned in the HTML5 conformance checking  
project is that validation when augmented with Schematron and editing  
with RELAX NG only call for different schemas.

>> Suppose the schemas James Clark wrote for XHTML 1.0 had been  
>> normative.
>> Would it have been good it Petr Nálevka had been accused of  
>> breaking a
>> normative schema when he made bug fixes and tightened the schemas  
>> with
>> Schematron? Would it be a good idea if I'd be accused of breaking a
>> normative schema if I tightened the schemas further by e.g. using the
>> datatype library that I've been developing for HTML5? (
>> http://hsivonen.iki.fi/html5-datatypes/ )
>
> Well, according to this logic, shouldn't be then proponents of HTML5
> accused? ;-D

Accused of what? The (X)HTML5 schemas fantasai and I are developing  
have no normative status whatsoever. If the spec and the schema  
disagree, the schema has a bug that needs to be fixed. (The schema is  
not done, yet, and has known bugs. The spec isn't done, yet, either.)

>>> I think that problem is in education here -- it is not a big deal to
>>> show and explain difference between valid and conformant document.
>>
>> To me, it seems that the WHATWG is interested in people producing
>> conforming documents but not interested in a lesser notion of  
>> validity
>> that is based on the arbitrary limitations of a particular schema  
>> language.
>
> But it would be easier if they will define additional constraints  
> on top
> of schema validity then to duplicate work which can be easily  
> expressed
> using schemas.

That's what I am doing, but it is an implementation detail. The spec  
makes the normative statements in English. It is up to me to decide  
how I implement the checking for each requirement.

-- 
Henri Sivonen
hsivonen@iki.fi
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/