Re: Why must an XML document contain an element?

Peter Murray-Rust (Peter@ursus.demon.co.uk)
Tue, 06 May 1997 22:02:10 GMT

In message <libSDtMail.9705061500.25812.ebaatz@barbaresco> Eric Baatz - Sun Microsystems Labs BOS writes:
> After I had send my message, I was staring at
>
> [23] document ::= Prolog element Misc*
> [36] element ::= EmtpyElement | STag content ETag
> [35] content ::= (element | PCData | ... | Comment)*
>
> when the light went on and I said "Oh, everything in one
> element. Wish I hadn't sent that last message."

I'm glad you did, because it raised some important issues.
XML-DEV, in the tradition of SGML, welcomes contributions from
thsoe who are exploring the language. (comp.text.sgml and XML-WG
are littered with postings from me which I might have been better
to suppress :-). It's very important that we get this traffic because
it shows where the presentation of the language and its tools is
deficient. If people find things hard to understand, then there is
an onus on the documenters to make more effort.

Anyway, it's been far too quiet on this list :-) We need to know how
people are finding XML and what they want from it.

P.

-- 
Peter Murray-Rust, domestic net connection
Virtual School of Molecular Sciences
http://www.vsms.nottingham.ac.uk/