From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Peter Flynn Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.psgml.devel,gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Re: Key sequence C-c C-f C-e uses invalid prefix characters Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:29:49 +0000 Organization: Silmaril Consultants Sender: psgml-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: <3E217BDD.6030403@silmaril.ie> References: <3DFE4E98.1080204@silmaril.ie> <200212162248.gBGMm2m00520@rum.cs.yale.edu> <3DFFC29E.4060100@silmaril.ie> <20030112040605.GA26128@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1042380978 14385 80.91.224.249 (12 Jan 2003 14:16:18 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:16:18 +0000 (UTC) Cc: psgml-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 18XiuO-0003jh-00 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:16:16 +0100 Original-Received: from lists.sourceforge.net ([66.35.250.206] helo=sc8-sf-list2.sourceforge.net) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 18Xj1P-0003Hz-00 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 15:23:31 +0100 Original-Received: from sc8-sf-list1-b.sourceforge.net ([10.3.1.13] helo=sc8-sf-list1.sourceforge.net) by sc8-sf-list2.sourceforge.net with esmtp (Exim 3.31-VA-mm2 #1 (Debian)) id 18Xiv9-0000R3-00; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 06:17:03 -0800 Original-Received: from mail.d-n-a.net ([194.46.8.11] helo=ni-mail1.dna.utvinternet.net) by sc8-sf-list1.sourceforge.net with esmtp (Exim 3.31-VA-mm2 #1 (Debian)) id 18XiuL-00031K-00 for ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 06:16:14 -0800 Original-Received: from silmaril.ie (unverified [195.218.110.210]) by ni-mail1.dna.utvinternet.net (Vircom SMTPRS 1.4.232) with ESMTP id ; Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:16:03 +0000 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826 X-Accept-Language: en, de, fr, ga Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Errors-To: psgml-devel-admin@lists.sourceforge.net X-BeenThere: psgml-devel@lists.sourceforge.net X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9-sf.net Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: X-Original-Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 14:29:49 +0000 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.psgml.devel:97 gmane.emacs.devel:10694 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:10694 Miles Bader wrote: > On Wed, Dec 18, 2002 at 12:34:38AM +0000, Peter Flynn wrote: > >>There is no point in even attempting to edit SGML without a DTD, > > Of course there's a point. It may not be as nice as when you know the real > semantics (the results may be woefully wrong, if the grammar has lots of > implicit end tags or something), but it's still useful. Not really, in the sense that you can't *use* the file in any normal way unless it's valid. If you know the DTD by heart and you have a great eye for accuracy, sure, you can edit the file using vi or Notepad or Emacs with just sgml-mode and you'll probably get it very close to correct. And there is at least one very important set of occasions when editing SGML without a validating enviromment is significantly important, as has been pointed out elsewhere (http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/achallc97/papers/p041.html). The results will almost certainly be woefully wrong for any non-trivial case, so apart from the above I'm not clear how it could be said to be "useful" except as a learning experience. >>as a DTD is *required* by ISO 8859 for all processing. > > It doesn't matter what the `standard requires,' it matters what users find > convenient. This is meaningless. I can't supply a client with a broken document and tell them that my author found it more "convenient" to edit without the DTD and that the fact that they specified SGML according to a specific DTD "doesn't matter". *I* didn't specify SGML conformance, *they* did, and the fact that I may believe standards adherence to be wrong doesn't change the fact that I have to supply what has been contracted for. You might just as well say that even though the law says you must stop at a red light, you find it more convenient to run the light. In your view, if someone thinks that that "it doesn't matter" if the ANSI C standard requires some aspect of C syntax that they don't like, and if they find it more convenient to omit some declarations because they get in the way, you believe these people should be at liberty to do so and still claim they are writing C. I think not; and it won't work. "The standard doesn't matter" means you can't be bothered your ass :-) that's fine, it's your ass, and if you really don't like the SGML standard (many don't), you are at complete liberty to go and make your own system. You just can't call it SGML or XML. (Many people, especially programmers, hate and despise SGML and XML very deeply indeed because they are not programming languages, and because they cannot be described using the shibboleths of standard Comp Sci Prog Lang 101. We -- the SGML/XML community -- have failed to communicate and educate about the difference between markup languages and programming, and Computer Science has failed to adapt itself to include some of the paradigms of markup.) > Think `graceful degradation' -- do the best you can, instead of pedantically > clinging to standards. Graceful degradation is fine in the face of corrupted files, as I have already explained. But when you are contracted to produce SGML there is no point in producing nonsense-markup instead. A standard is a standard, period. I didn't write them, but my customers require that I adhere to them. I'm not clear why you use the word "pedantic". Pedanticism is for *off-standard* behaviour, like requiring adherence to optional features as if they were compulsory. That is not the case under discussion here. > So when you can't get the SGML DTD, Ah. Now *that's* a different problem entirely. If it never existed (files created by people who didn't know what they were creating), or the DTD is lost in the mists of time, then the simple solution is to create one. There are programs to do this -- have been for years -- and I even documented one in my 1998 book on SGML/XML tools, called Fred (from OCLC). There are now many more for XML as well. > just pretend the file's XML, and you'll get `sort of reasonable' > results. Not with sgml-mode, and for the same reasons. But with an Emacs mode that handles XML you can indeed edit the file as well-formed DTD-less XML, and I have suggested this as a solution to malformed or broken SGML on numerous occasions. > It's not `correct,' but it's probably still useful, On the contrary, it will actually be perfectly "correct" (as well-formed DTD-less XML) and it will probably be quite useful. But it won't be what we have been calling SGML until you reference or attach a DTD and validate it, if that's what you need. > and sounds pretty easy to me*... It's all very easy. It just needs to be done right (the easy way) instead of wrong (the hard way). ///Peter ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com