• To: Michael Good <musicxml@g...>
• Subject: Re: Choosing a target name for a processing instruction
• From: Elliotte Harold <elharo@m...>
• Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2006 06:14:41 -0400
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <b5ca83430604281240s21f2a567na2102c8c7ffc9f03@m...>
• References: <b5ca83430604281240s21f2a567na2102c8c7ffc9f03@m...>
• User-agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 (Macintosh/20060308)

Michael Good wrote:

> We have a situation where we need to add a new capability to the 
> MusicXML language. This would best be handled by added a new feature to 
> the MusicXML DTD, but we have customers who need its right now and 
> cannot wait for MusicXML 1.2. So the best choice seems to be to add a 
> processing instruction to the MusicXML 1.1 output. The feature is really 
> simple, so a PI lets us add the new feature while keeping the document 
> valid and adding little parsing overhead.
>  

If it were me I'd go ahead and make it an element, validity be damned. 
Or call it 1.1.1 and issue a new DTD. Processing instructions are the 
bastard stepchild of the XML world. Lots of tools don't really support 
them. If you use a processing instruction where and element would do, 
you're just asking for trouble, plus you'll never be able to get rid of 
it in 1.2 once you've let it out of the bag.  :-(

-- 
Elliotte Rusty Harold  elharo@m...
XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim

• References:
  • Choosing a target name for a processing instruction
    • From: "Michael Good" <musicxml@g...>

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