Re: iCalendar as an XML DTD

[pfonte@xxxxxxxxxx (Paul Fonte)]

so far, the responses to proposing XML as an alternative delivery format
to the CALSCH format for the data appear to be less than friendly.
this piques my curiosity.

to me, the hard work of this group has been very well presented in the
data format contained in the current work products.
i don't understand the resistance to a parallel _delivery_ format.

in order for CALSCH to become accepted as a commodity product (i hope
that's one of our goals), it would seem that encouraging as many
delivery mechanisms of standard data would be a logical conclusion.

is there something i am missing here?
does my logical separation of data from delivery formats not make sense?
doesn't this discussion at least point out that an important design goal
may have been partially accomplished (separation of content from
delivery).

i am most concerned by the vagueness of statements made in criticism of 
XML and i am less than swayed, can anyone offer specific, concrete
technical reasons not to pursue the translation?
are there specific deficiencies of the XML spec that haven't been made
public?

justwonderin

paul fonte


Chris Newman wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, Harald Alvestrand wrote:
> > Doesn't mean it's a good idea.
> > XML is a complex tool, and has yet to prove its value in a real-life
> > situation, no matter how much the press says about it; "in vogue" and
> > "useful" are not necessarily overlapping categories.
> >
> > ...
> >
> > It does not seem to me that CALSCH needs to join the queue of willing
> > volunteers for trying out XML for various purposes.
> 
> I concur with Harald on this point.
> 
> In addition to being unproven in the field, XML is about an order of
> magnitude more complex than the format CALSCH uses. I'm also not happy
> with the idea of basing open-standard work like CALSCH on closed-standard
> work like XML.  XML repeated a number of design errors I've seen made in
> various IETF work over the years and it's annoying to be stuck with such
> design errors again.
> 
>                 - Chris