> [D]espite
> everyone crying about standards bodies being too slow, perhaps in this
> case the WG is being too fast.
Indeed.
> All of this talk about extending DTD's and element type inheritance
> seems to totally ignore the question of possible implementation. An
> idea is just an idea until you something concrete behind it. XML has
> the years of success of SGML behind it, but this namespaces stuff has
> nothing behind it.
And what's worse, there's an alternative (architectures) that actually
has an implementation (David Megginson's XAF), plus years of SGML
experience.
> The secrecy process that
> the W3C goes through makes me wonder sometimes if the W3C is simply a
> corporation responsible to its shareholders (those who fork over the big
> bucks to become members) rather than a real standards body for the
> betterment of computing.
That's *exactly* what it is. It's a *consortium*, which serves the
interests of its members and no others.
Unfortunately, we're stuck with it, until some ISO/IEC committee
can be persuaded to take up XML (there is already one trying
to create ISO HTML). ISO/IEC WGs may be horribly slow and politics-ridden,
but they can't just *ignore* comments if they are properly submitted.
They *have* to process all of them.
-- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn. You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn. Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)