RE: [xml-dev] Ten Years Later - XML 1.0 Fifth Edition?

["Michael Kay" <mike@saxonica.com>]

>> 4. Expand the name productions to include characters from Unicode 5, 
> but still forbid undefined characters, musical symbols and the like. 

I think it's unfortunate that XML 1.1 and XML 1.05 decided to allow all
non-ASCII characters in names. I have always dreamed that there would be a
day when programming languages were able to use symbols like the
multiplication and division signs with their intended meanings, rather than
using ASCII approximations. Treating such symbols as names seems to rule
this out for ever. Or if you decide that they are needed in names, then you
should allow ASCII punctuation characters such as "+" and "*" in names too,
with a suitable escape convention.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/