RE: [xml-dev] Formatting Processing Instructions

["Len Bullard" <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

From: Amelia A Lewis [mailto:amyzing@talsever.com] 
Subject: RE: [xml-dev] Formatting Processing Instructions

<? Disclaimer first: not a wizard, don't play one on television. ?>

<assertion emph="wiseguy">Wizards always deny until they know the name of
the dragon.</assertion>

It's about the assumptions of senders.

Have some questions, though.

:> o  system ids

>What?  Outside a doctype?  I doubt anyone could find an alternate 
>solution without an example of how this is working; SystemID-s seem (to 
>me) to be tightly coupled to doctype declarations.

XML can be.  Doesn't have to be.  A simplification, but XML is giving up the
SGML Declaration.  Past that, not much so it keeps working.  On the other
hand, component coherence suffers because configuring them predictably is a
local-out to the network, in other words, brightest closest.  Proximity to
governing source matters.  I was referring to Betty's comment about using it
to pass information so that the components recognize one another.

o  change tracking

>I can see this one.  In fact, replacing this would be hard; change 
>tracking could break the tree with (HTML-style) spans that break 
>tag-start/tag-end parity.

Convenient but so.  OTOH, revisits question of the form of sharable measures
that in fact, do contribute to quality.  

>You could do it with plain old markup, anyway <del timestamp="" 
>author="">...</del> and corresponding <add /> and <repl />.  Doesn't 
>map 1:1 where tag enclosure breaks, but otherwise easy.  Breaks DTDs 
>(but could be made to work by DTD inclusion: define these bits in 
>something that %pe-includes the real DTDs).

A question perhaps of the transitory nature of the information, the scale to
which it is shared, and the contribution it makes to the next data
lifecycle?  IOW, if enough people share a DTD reliably, it is the better
design.  OTOH, a lot of syntax for a little information in a practicing
community where everyone knows how to dim a string and parse it.  So a
measure of the intensity of definition required to sustain the quality of
the information given the requirements of some community of users that
interact.  It is a human-needs question.  Tribe decides.


 o  short duration meta-descriptors

>Don't know what this means.


I don't either. 

> o  medium legacy code

>Don't think I know what this means

A system in transition.  Why ArborText is loaded with PIs.  I was referring
to the term of the time it take for them to make the transition to
communicate and contribute to next generation systems that have evolved to
share information by alternative but internally coherent so diffuse
measures. DTD ecosystems make the guarantee that even if the pixels suffer,
the XML will be intact.


o  page fidelity

>A great deal depends upon what this means.  

Pixel for pixel fidelity.  A page in this measure is only and ever a raster
image.  

Calling an XML construct a page is like calling a thread a coat.