SAX and delayed entity loading

[John Cowan]

Simon St.Laurent scripsit:

> I see notations as worsening this problem because they exist inside
> documents

I'm not sure what this means.  Notation *declarations* exist within
documents, but all they do is bind a local name to the universal
name of the notation, like external parsed entity decls and namespace
decls.  Notation *definitions* are global, like the IANA MIME-type
registry, but they piggyback on the URL system.

> and become management nightmares if the registry of whatever kind
> changes.  Allowing information to identify itself when requested avoids
> this complication - the registry may not be any better, but at least I
> don't have to modify my documents to match up to the registry.

I should add one point to my potted summary:

	The binding of (universal) MIME type names to their
	specifications isn't allowed to change, except possibly
	for allowing upward-compatible extensions, like new
	characters in Unicode; for new semantics, new names (possibly
	via parameters) must be introduced.

Overall, then, neither notations nor MIME types are subsets of the
other; each has special properties the other lacks.

Eliot scripsit:

> >Not to say that MIME types are bad,
> >only that I don't expect them to be around in 100 years.  I do expect SGML
> >and XML, as *implementation and system independent standards* to be around
> >in 100 years.

MIME type names are also implementation- and system-independent,
though IANA is more de facto than ISO. Local renderers for them are not,
of course.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan at ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)

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