[Doc-SIG] XML Conversion Update
Paul Prescod
paul@prescod.net
Fri, 27 Aug 1999 17:41:27 -0400
Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote:
>
> Paul Prescod writes:
> > I think that we should use a variant of Docbook and use some SGML
> > minimizations supported by sgmllib (or that COULD be supported by
> > sgmllib). WE can trivially use sgmllib+sax to normalize minimized SGML
>
> So you favor SGML over XML?
I favor a well-defined subset of SGML using basically the XML features
plus end-tag minimization. That can massively cut down on the annoyance
factor.
If we ship a simple PyML to DBXML script with Python nobody will
complain that we are doing something "non-standard".
> That had been my original thought, but
> I shifted as more & better XML tools became available.
Well in the Python universe any XML tool that uses SAX or the DOM *is*
an SGML tool. Admittedly the Java world is not as open-minded as we are
but that's their problem. Jade certainly has no problem with either XML
or SGML.
I think that trying to stick carefully to DocBook is probably too much
work. We should design a Python-ic variant -- just like we do with APIs.
We can use a transformation to "get to" the standard version (just as we
use classes/functions for abstraction in APIs)
Paul Prescod