Re: Linking to XML (Re: http://apache.org/forrest/dtd/document-v12.dtd)

[David Crossley <cr...@indexgeo.com.au>]

Jeff Turner wrote:
> David Crossley wrote:
> ...
> > Also we used to just have a basic System Identifier that was just
> > the DTD filename. e.g. "document-v12.dtd". Why did we change it to
> > be a full URL?
> 
> Because it made people think that there *ought* to be a DTD at
> ../document-v12.dtd, and that either their XML or their DTDs were wrongly
> placed.  The POI people even copied the DTDs there, under this
> assumption.

Eeek. Okay, that is a good reason. This then shows that our
documentation is not too good if they miss the core entity resolver.
I will try to add another FAQ to our docs.

Now we will have shifted the problem. They will now think
that there *ought* to be the DTDs and stuff at that URL.

I wonder if we should put an index.html at /dtd/ to point them
to proper mechanisms.

> .. and the REAL reason was :) that I want to edit XML in IDEA, which has
> excellent XML support (auto-complete, etc).  IDEA maps system ids to
> physical locations, so I needed a well-defined system id.

Well not too "excellent XML support" if it doesn't utilise
the explicitly well-defined Public Identifiers too.

Okay, that is two good reasons.

--David

Re: Linking to XML (Re: http://apache.org/forrest/dtd/document-v12.dtd)

[David Crossley <cr...@indexgeo.com.au>]

Jeff Turner wrote:
> David Crossley wrote:
<snip/>
> 
> > I wonder if we should put an index.html at /dtd/ to point them
> > to proper mechanisms.
> 
> If it's not a DTD I don't think we should put it there.. guess what kind
> of error messages an XML parser gives when interpreting HTML as DTD ;)

Sorry, i should explain myself better.

People who do not understand will go looking there for the DTDs.
We could add an index.html page to explain why there are no DTDs.
The actual URLs for the *.dtd would still get a 404 error.

I will not do that and instead add to our FAQ.

--David

Re: Linking to XML (Re: http://apache.org/forrest/dtd/document-v12.dtd)

[Jeff Turner <je...@apache.org>]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 06:08:26PM +1100, David Crossley wrote:
> Jeff Turner wrote:
> > David Crossley wrote:
> > ...
> > > Also we used to just have a basic System Identifier that was just
> > > the DTD filename. e.g. "document-v12.dtd". Why did we change it to
> > > be a full URL?
> > 
> > Because it made people think that there *ought* to be a DTD at
> > ../document-v12.dtd, and that either their XML or their DTDs were wrongly
> > placed.  The POI people even copied the DTDs there, under this
> > assumption.
> 
> Eeek. Okay, that is a good reason. This then shows that our
> documentation is not too good if they miss the core entity resolver.

I think it just shows that people don't read docs, which is
understandable (I don't either).  For people who care to look, we have a
quite adequate description of our catalog use:

http://xml.apache.org/forrest/validation.html#Validating+new+XML+types

For people who don't care to look, Forrest should "just work".

> I will try to add another FAQ to our docs.
> 
> Now we will have shifted the problem. They will now think
> that there *ought* to be the DTDs and stuff at that URL.

It absolves the user of the responsibility for a perceived problem, which
is good enough for me :)

> I wonder if we should put an index.html at /dtd/ to point them
> to proper mechanisms.

If it's not a DTD I don't think we should put it there.. guess what kind
of error messages an XML parser gives when interpreting HTML as DTD ;)

> > .. and the REAL reason was :) that I want to edit XML in IDEA, which has
> > excellent XML support (auto-complete, etc).  IDEA maps system ids to
> > physical locations, so I needed a well-defined system id.
> 
> Well not too "excellent XML support" if it doesn't utilise the
> explicitly well-defined Public Identifiers too.

True (it doesn't have any catalog support), but in XML the sysId is
mandatory (if a doctype is present), whereas the pubId isn't.


--Jeff

> Okay, that is two good reasons.
> 
> --David
>