[XML-SIG] Developer's Day

[Paul Prescod]

Sean Mc Grath wrote:
> 
> ...
> I believe we should acknowledge that
> variations on XML exist in the real world
> and step in to avoid chaos developing.
> On xml-dev before XML'99 I suggested the
> idea of an XML "features manifest". A
> structured document that declares what
> features of XML 1.0 parser X or app. Y
> supports/uses.
> 
> I received about 6 e-mails saying it was
> a good idea. Hardly an avalanche!

I think that your idea is good to a point. The XML specification has
certain "optional features" and of course there are optional Unicode
encodings. It would be good to have documentation of those.

But XML itself is not too hard to parse in its entirety. There is no
reason to wave the white flag. If you are programming in C++, Java,
Javascript or TCL it takes no more effort to parse all well-formed
documents than it takes to parse a simpler subset. The urge to simplify
XML is aesthetic, not practical. Practically speaking a mess of subsets
-- even well-documented subsets -- is still a mess. As an old SGML'er I
feel like "Been there. Done that. Let's not do it again." In the SGML
days there was an excuse because performance was an issue but modern XML
processors work at IO speeds. There is no excuse for non-conformance.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for himself
Three things see no end: A loop with exit code done wrong
A semaphore untested, and the change that comes along
http://www.geezjan.org/humor/computers/threes.html