Actually, I think a DTD could be very useful. The issue is that most
of what goes into a "directory" is domain specific metadata; even for
files, different operating systems give very different metadata. Is
there an Access Control List? If so, is it POSIX? What to do with
the entries? What, no "hard link count"? Is case significant? Etc.
Conclusion being that there will probably be a core DTD and bunches
of domain-specific addons, each with their own namespaces.
Re crashing sounds, I was thinking about the security implications.
Browsing any directory -- filesystem, name service, phone book,
employee database, database catalog, etc -- is security-sensitive.
Yep, it'd hardly take any time at all to put together a servlet that
works this way ... ;-)
- Dave