RE: XML+RPC vs BCP70 , <?xml?> processing tag abuse?

[Larry Masinter <LMM@xxxxxxx>]

> The main problem with XML-RPC is that it exists. And it was misdesigned
> from the very beginning, like I tried to point out with the
> '<value type="string">...</' example. And my draft was meant to make
> a standard out of something that was already misimplemented widely,
> hence the various restrictions on things that didn't need to 
> be restricted if it wasn't that something already went wrong.

An informational document that describes a mis-designed
protocol can note the ways in which the design is bad.

An informational document that describes something that doesn't
follow "best current practice" can describe the reasons
why it doesn't follow those practices; if they're not good
reasons, then it can say so.

On the one hand, you talk about XML-RPC as something
that "already exists", and on the other, you talk about changes
you might be able to make to it. So it's not clear what the status
is. Of course it's better to fix things than to describe how they're
broken. You can even note that "Previous implementations did this
broken thing, which has now been corrected".

Larry
-- 
http://larry.masinter.net