SML Status Report

[Lisa Rein]

if anyone else responds to this email, and, if it, in fact does lead to
a thread on the xml-dev list about SML, I can't be held responsible for
my actions...:-)

lisa

(hint: those who care about sml can go check on the sml-dev list, any
time they want right? -- just checking, thanks.)

Don Park wrote:
> 
> Quite a few people have been asking me about the status
> of SML.  This is a status report on the SML effort and
> the group behind it, the SML-DEV.
> 
> So far, we achieved tentative concensus on following
> issues:
> 
>   SML is a strict subset of XML
>   SML supports:
>     UTF-8 and UTF-16 only.
>     empty elements.
>     numeric character entities.
>     predefined character entities.
>   SML does not support:
>     DTD
>     CDATA sections
>     XML and text declarations
>     Processing Instructions
>     Comments
>     Entities (except character entities)
>   SML attribute names must not conflict with
>     child element names.
> 
> We are currently trying to formulate an information
> model for SML before moving forward to tackle tougher
> issues such as attribute, mixed content, and namespace
> support.  I think SML represents an unique opportunity
> to do things right in the right order.  In contrast,
> XML information model is still being worked on, two
> years after XML syntax.
> 
> There have been some wildly innovative ideas that came
> up in SML information model threads: attributed grammars,
> colored nodes, rhythmic encoding, unisyntax data model,
> and even some Grove model variations.  Beauty of some of
> these ideas can be appreciated immediately.  For example,
> following is a rather concise notation for our version of
> the Groves model:
> 
>   node := character | map(string,list(node))
> 
> other versions that followed removes the distinction
> between a character and a map, and then adds context:
> 
>   node = map(string, list(node))
>   node = tuple(parent, map(string, list(node)))
> 
> Some ideas were less apparent but fantastic nonetheless.
> For example, the 'colored node' proposal starts with SML
> having just black and white  nodes (name and value),
> then treats CSML (Colored-SML), CXML (Common-XML), XML,
> XHTML, and arbitrary markup languages as SML with nodes
> colored differently (i.e. attribute, PI, comment, etc.).
> 'colors' differ from 'types' in that the colors are
> not 'in' the model but provided by other means such
> as parsers or 'painters'.  Leigh Dodds prepared an example
> titled "SML Color Book" which shows how the 'painting' is
> done.
> 
>   http://www.bath.ac.uk/~ccslrd/sml/coloringbook2.html
> 
> While these ideas might seem a bit 'off-the-ground' to you,
> most members of SML-DEV are as practical as they come, and
> plan to use SML and related technologies to build commercial
> products.  E-commerce, B2B or B2C data exchange in particular,
> seems to be the most common application SML-DEV members are
> interested in using SML in.  Just as the design of XML was
> influenced by the primary interests of its inventors,
> publishing documents on the web, SML's design will likely be
> heavily influenced by our interests in e-commerce and data
> exchange.  After all, SML will be our child.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Don Park    -   mailto:donpark at docuverse.com
> Docuverse   -   http://www.docuverse.com
> 
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