Bruce D'Arcus writes:
>
> On Oct 10, 2004, at 10:49 AM, Markus Hoenicka wrote:
>
> > Catalogs were used in the SGML world to make path resolution as
> > painless as possible.
>
> And given how much pain this caused me in setting it up, I'd argue it
> failed.
>
Ok, use Debian and you'll hardly ever have to touch a catalog
file. The smoothness of this experience depends on your system vendor.
> > You suggest it is a good thing that each XML tool needs to be
> > configured to resolve paths.
>
> No, my only general point is that I don't see why one should need
> specify anything about paths to stylesheets to compile an application
> like RefDB.
>
It is not necessary to specify paths as long as you use SGML, because
SGML has catalog support. You don't have to hard-code paths because
you can look up this info in the catalog. It is necessary to specify
paths for XML because there is no catalog support. You have to
hard-code each and every path. This is a shortcoming of XML. It's that
easy.
The only alternative to separate the stylesheet configuration from the
build process is to ask the user to customize five driver files
manually after installation.
> More broadly, I believe a system that requires all the baggage
> associated with DTDs (doctype declarations, catalog files, etc.) just
> to process one's files is user-unfriendly. I'm speaking in
> generalities here; not specifically about RefDB.
>
I'm sorry but I still don't see how schema can replace catalogs. How
does schema map an URL to a local file without anything like a
catalog? It's all XML, after all. If a DTD-based document imports a
different document by means of a <import href="whatever">, a
schema-based document will do this as well. URLs are still the
standard, even in XSLT2.0. I'm afraid you overestimate the magic
associated with schema (or I'm entirely ignorant, which is perfectly
possible).
regards,
Markus
--
Markus Hoenicka
markus.hoenicka@xxxxxxx
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de
-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by: IT Product Guide on ITManagersJournal
Use IT products in your business? Tell us what you think of them. Give us
Your Opinions, Get Free ThinkGeek Gift Certificates! Click to find out more
http://productguide.itmanagersjournal.com/guidepromo.tmpl
|
