Re: well-formedness error

[Greg Stein <gstein@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 14, 2004 at 09:06:31AM -0400, Sam Ruby wrote:
> Danny Ayers wrote:
> >Greg Stein wrote:
> >>In HTTP land, the phrase that we use is: "be strict in what you do, but
> >>be lenient in what you accept."
> >
> >I believe Anne was talking about XML well-formedness, rather than any 
> >HTTP (or TCP) characteristic. XML is not robust (by design), hence 
> >Postel's Law does not apply. Whether or not Atom as a system is intended 
> >to be robust is another matter.
> 
> Yes, XML is draconian by design.  However, this characteristic only 
> applies to a single component within the context of a larger system.  To

Right. I was referring to leniency in the XML elements used, their
attributes, and the cdata contents (iow, "app-level" leniency), rather
than whether the XML itself was well-formed. I would consider XML
well-formedness to be a basic prerequisite :-)

The quote that I used wasn't intended to refer to Atom's use of HTTP :-)

>...
> While this is robust, this is not "silent acceptance".  And any improper 
> interpretation of a well formed feed by the Universal Feed Parser would 
> be treated as a bug.

Agreed.

Cheers,
-g