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"Champion, Mike" wrote: > How about > > 5) Refactor the various specs so that they layer cleanly, and add some sort > of "features" or "profile" string (in the XML declaration? As a PI? > namespace URI pointing to a RDDL document?) to negotiate the feature set > between the processor and the application. > > I know this is easier said than done, but seems like the right conceptual > solution to me. I think that, in any practical implementation, this amounts to (4). I would not advocate refactoring because 1) we are looking for stability, and recreating specifications which (even assuming that any consensus can be found once they are reopened) is too high a price to pay in uncertainty and churn; and 2) one man's clean is another man's dirty, which is my basic point. The constituent specs look cleanly layered, or conversely thin and uncoordinated, only in light of a processing model which projects a particular conceptual whole onto them. In short, we cannot expect 'document-centric' processing if by that we mean processors which are obliged to carried out the intent of a document creator as stated in some canonical form within the instance document. Processing is processor-centric. A 'negotiation' between a document and a processor consists of some portions of the instance document providing the evidence on which a processor determines, by its own functional rules, what that document is in respect of its capability to process it. Respectfully, Walter Perry
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