RE: merge mode for XML

[Gary Bisaga]

Sorry, this strikes me as just a little bit extreme. I agree that you ought
to write DTDs or schemas (just yesterday I had to make one of our developers
do so, and our own internal XML infrastructure requires them). But to call
documents without DTDs/schemas "not XML" and unworthy of configuration
management is certainly not supported by the XML spec or common usage. For
one thing, as I'm sure you know, the XML spec does not seem to deprecate
well-formed XML documents. When I was in the W3 XML working group (1999)
there was certainly a group of us (not everybody) who believed that
well-formed documents had a place in the world.

And if we take this tack, what about constructs not declarable with DTDs?
XML Schemas will certainly improve this, but many people are not using them
yet. Are DTDs with "ANY" declarations also not XML, since they really don't
describe the semantics of the document? Since DTDs can't describe data types
or other restrictions (such as field length), is any DTD'ed document "not
XML"?

DTDs and schemas are good and should be used wherever possible. But there
are realities of life.

<>< gary

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden Behalf Of
Greg A. Woods
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 1:56 AM
To: Peter Ring
Cc: CVS-II Discussion Mailing List
Subject: RE: merge mode for XML
> <rant>There's a class of simple XML documents that live and
> die without getting near either a DTD or revision control.
> Without a schema and accompanying documentation, there's no
> way to tell the semantics of the XML document, and not much
> point in version management.</rant>

Amen.  I couldn't agree more!
Those who dare call such things "XML" are sadly mistaken.