RE: [xml-dev] Doctypes again (was Re: [xml-dev] Documents within documents)

> Re: "one of the weakest things about DTDs is that a
>      document is considered valid if it meets the
>      sender's criteria, whether or not it meets
>      the recipient's"
>
> Michael, is that a fair criticism of DTDs per se?

It's a criticism of their role within the architecture. When I parse a
document, I want it to be valid against the DTD that describes my
expectations, I don't care whether it's valid against the DTD that the
document itself nominates. But of course the DTD also contains things that
belong with the document, like entities; so yes, it's a criticism of DTDs
per se.

And I fully agree with Henry: this is one thing that XML Schema got right.

Michael Kay
Software AG
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