| Call for unification of W3C specifications
In a posting
to XML-DEV on
Monday Nils Klarlund
made a call to unify and clarify the XML 1.0, DOM, XPATH,
and XML Infoset specifications. The post raised some
interesting responses.
In his message Nils included a catalogue of apparent
inconsistencies between the four specifications, both in
terms of their model and terminology. In a follow-up post,
Nils also commented:
"I'm concerned that DOM, XPATH, and
INFOSET do not turn out to be essentially the same model.
That would be a great shame. Better get it right
than rush."
In a lengthy, and eye-opening, contribution Steven
Newcomb wrote:
"I continue to find it astonishing and
frustrating that, despite the fact that all this was
already straightened out, and very cleanly indeed,
in the ISO/IEC 10744:1997 international standard, excellent
people like Nils Klarlund still don't know about it, or, if
they do, they choose to ignore it. Nils's analysis of
this situation fails to even mention groves and property
sets, much less compare their carefully balanced elegance
with the ongoing W3C design chaos that he so
deplores."
Michael Champion responded:
"The "lack of influence garnered by ISO
10744" is, as near as I can tell, the result of its
difficulty for an ordinarily intelligent person to
understand, not a conspiracy involving Microsoft, the
press, the W3C, or anyone else."
This comes after a lengthy debate on XML-DEV concerning the
W3C, its processes, and even possible alternatives.
Relevant links:
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