* Michael Sokolov wrote:
There's OCD stuff in the XML world too, and it was there right from the
start, it just has a different flavor: DTD. The whole "DOCTYPE must be
conveyed with the document" religion created the concept of a document
that isn't complete without being processed by its accompanying DTD.
The result is a programmer's nightmare, but makes sense to a certain
kind of document purist.
DTDs are necessary to process documents that depend on them e.g. because
they use named entity references as re-usable macros, or in case of SGML
to permit various forms of shorthand syntax like implied elements. Then
they made processing DTDs optional and people did not bother to develop
and deploy infrastructure needed to work with them.
Thank you! I couldn't have explained that perspective myself. From my
(programmer's) perspective, the idea that a document is not complete in
itself without some external resources to interpret it turns out to be a
practical disadvantage. I understand there are historical reasons for
the DTD dependence. I was just pointing out that is religion of a
different sort than the programmer's dogma that Pete and Simon were
alluding (type purity and rigidity of design, I think).
