xml:id RE: [sc34wg3] Compact syntax requirement question

[Bernard Vatant]

Lars Marius

> CTM is specifically meant *not* to be an XML syntax.

Indeed? Where is this specified, and what is the rationale for not using XML?

If I read the following requirements.

  (f) CTM needs to be compact, and easy to write.

  (g) CTM needs to be easy to read.

  (h) CTM shouldn't be too hard to parse.

  (i) CTM has to support all character encodings.

I would like to add :

	CTM should be easy to validate

	CTM should be easy to translate from/into other TM syntaxes (e.g. XTM)

So, if not XML, what kind of format do you figure? Plain text, with specific grammar?
With specific editing tools? Specific validators and parsers? Specific stylesheets?

This does not mean "easy" to me at all. If, just for sake of compactness (compacity?), I
lose all XML technology support, count me out, I'll stick to XTM. Given existing tools,
today : easy to write, read, parse, validate and translate means to me XML, sorry.

> But I think this is still useful, because it means we should probably make this clear in
> the CTM requirements. Right now it's taken for granted that the syntax
> is not going to be an XML syntax, and, as this shows, it can't really
> be taken for granted.

No, it can't, and if really it is to be this way, I would like to see the rationale.

Bernard

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Bernard Vatant
Mondeca Knowledge Engineering
bernard.vatant@mondeca.com
(+33) 0871 488 459

http://www.mondeca.com
http://universimmedia.blogspot.com
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