external parsed entites (was: A unique ID question ?)

[Len Bullard]

G. Ken Holman wrote:

> I, for one, hope external parsed entities *do not* go away.
> 
> While some people may use them incorrectly, why take them away when they
> can be used correctly?
> 
> I need them when I need to handle *one* XML file in *many* small manageable
> pieces ... I don't need them for re-use or for sharing, but they provide a
> useful convenience.

Cost questions:  does the feature 

1.  Add cost to implementation?
2.  Add complexity to information handling 

Are there alternatives that get the same result?
How do these alternatives affect the costs?
As you are a real pro who has worked with most 
of the major SGML and XML systems, is the 
convenience worth the overhead?

I've used them but not as much since I began 
to generate the markup server side.  Yes, 
they are good for managing small chunks of big 
documents and easy to assemble with tools if one 
is careful in building the entities, and knows how one is  
going to use them with other chunks.  Most of 
the time now, given the state of cheap tools, 
I use the relational DB for that.  General 
entities *feel* like batch SGML.  I'm not 
convinced they should go away because we 
have them, the cat is in the bag.  Why make 
the cat mad?  On the other hand, others 
can hold that bag because they don't add 
much to a server side repetoire, AFAICT.


len


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