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

[noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com]

Robin Berjon writes:

> Finally I'm scratching my head as I tend to have a bad memory on 
> occasion, but I don't remember anyone making the promise that XML 
> would never change.

I'm not specifically suggesting "don't change", though there certainly are 
good points to be made in favor of leaving things stable, as there are 
good points in favor of allowing the new tag names.  What I am saying is: 
when you change, make sure you have clearly distinct labels for the old 
and the new versions.  Try to avoid labels that are confusingly similar. 
That way, when people want the old stuff can ask for it and know they're 
getting it, and people who want the new stuff can ask for that.  I have no 
problem with also having some encompassing label that's for "I don't care, 
give me the latest."

I think the key question here is:  are the changes sufficiently small and 
uninteresting that merely changing the "edition" number is appropriate, or 
would it better serve users to use a more easily distinguished label?  My 
current personal leaning (and again, not necessarily IBM's), is that this 
change is big enough to merit a more visibly distinct name.  I suspect 
that very few users of XML can tell you which edition of XML they're 
using, until now very few have had need to care, and in fact I suspect 
very few know that there is such a thing as an "edition".

Noah

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Noah Mendelsohn 
IBM Corporation
One Rogers Street
Cambridge, MA 02142
1-617-693-4036
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