[Nml-wg] XML syntax for NML relations

[Jason Zurawski]

Hi Freek/All;

On 8/16/11 2:41 PM, thus spake Freek Dijkstra:
> Hi Jason,
>
> Let me be the first to say that I very much appreciate your feedback,
> despite the disagreements we sometimes have. I for one still gladly
> invite you for a cup of coffee (or any other beverage) next OGF :)
>
> The discussion this afternoon was indeed a bit heated, but I think we
> both can separate feelings from the technical discussion.

heated discussions are needed to get things done, but sometimes too much 
information on a mailing list is a bad thing.  if things are getting too 
technical to describe in email we should move to phone.

> Perhaps a phone call may help. I know there is an NMC call scheduled
> this Thursday, otherwise I would have proposed an NML call at that time.

NMC will need to meet this week, perhaps NML can meet next.

> There is still a lot to say regarding your previous mail, I may try to
> summarise it in a separate mail, but I'll gladly postpone that for now
> if you feel a short break serves the discussion.
>
>
> There's one off-hand remark that caught my eye:
>
>> to my knowledge a parser can only verify against a
>> single schema at any given time.
>
> To my knowledge it is possible for a parser to validate against multiple
> schema at the same time.

In my experience (libxml, some older Java libraries) a single schema is 
loaded into the parser.  It is possible to reference schema from each 
other, e.g. in relax:

> include "something.rnc" {
> # include things ...
> }

Trying to validate the same instance against different schemata 
simultaneously does not seem like a very fruitful exercise for a parser, 
unless there are multiple parsing passes being applied.  If the latter 
is true, I would argue that more time is being spent in syntax checking 
than in the real guts of semantic evaluation.

If you have real world examples I am happy to be proven wrong.

Thanks;

-jason

> I fear this alone may be responsible for quite a lot of our
> misunderstandings in this discussion.
>
> For example, to me that meant I saw no functional difference between an
> element in the same namespace and an element in a different namespace,
> while to you they are clearly very different (and I now understand my
> they are different to you; I previously didn't understand that). I also
> fear that the whole discussion at the first half of your previous email
> was just an exponent of this misunderstanding. At least, reading back I
> can now understand where your argument was coming from.
>
>
> Let's hope we can find the other underlying differences in assumptions
> we sure have (preferably with less lengthy mails ;) ).
>
> If you know a magical way to find these differences, let me know ...
>
>
> All the best,
> Freek