Re: [xml-dev] XML spec and XSD

[Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@allette.com.au>]

Jim Tivy wrote:
> Hi Rick
>
> Just to clarify, I was not confusing a dictionary with a specification. My
> dictionaries are large and rectangular and most specs I read online :)
>
> I think where we may agree is, a spec has language control and many specs
> have glossaries for this.  The point is that the term "valid" and
> "validation" are being used differently across the same standards
> organization within the same family of standards.  So, I think if another
> revision were done of XML 1.0 a change as proposed would be appropriate.
> That is not to say it will be done.  Lots of things are not rewritten
> endlessly - they stay as is, written within the context of the time.
>   
Well, I would quibble that XSD no more in the same family of standards 
as XML than you could regard WSDL as being in the same family. The lumur 
and the bonobo perhaps. It has an infoset (PSVI) that is not the XML 
infoset.

But if you decided that it was important that no standard should have 
particular meanings of general terms, such as validate, character, 
string, element, object, etc. then you would have to replace them with 
specific terms, such as "DTD-valid" and "XSD-valid".  So there would be 
no use of either "valid" (because the term is only used in the 
particular sense) or "XSD-valid" (because it belongs to a different 
spec) in the XML specification. If you think that would prevent 
confusion, go for it! 

Cheers
Rick