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

[Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

Felix Sasaki wrote:
> Robin Berjon wrote:
>> On Feb 16, 2008, at 04:00, Elliotte Harold wrote:
>>> (I still have yet to meet one single actual user who needs XML 1.1.)
> 
> Please read http://rishida.net/blog/?p=135
> 

That's theoretical. Note he doesn't say he actually needs any of these 
characters himself, nor does he say he's met any users who do.

I reiterate: I have yet to hear from or of one single person who wants a 
character added in XML 1.1.

Probably there is someone out there somewhere, or may one day be, but 
the fact that there isn't even one yet (and I've looked) indicates that 
the need for this is miniscule. It's just not worth the cost of the change.

Now, as I've said before, if we could eliinate the actively bad ideas 
from XML 1.1 like allowing undefined characters in names and NEL, and if 
we could offer other benefits to real, non-theoretical users to offset 
the costs of a transition, then we might as well go ahead and add the 
new name characters through Unicode 5 in a putative XML 2.0. However, 
absent some other compelling benefit, the costs are just way too high. 
And there's certainly no excuse for breaking the W3C process to enable 
these characters few if any individuals actually want or need.

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@metalab.unc.edu
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/