[XML-SIG] Value of namespaces

[Andrew M. Kuchling]

Wes Rishel writes:
>Indeed, the debate that keeps resurfacing in our discussions is whether
>there is any substantial benefit to using a validating parser. At least in
>our context, which includes XML and other representations of the same
>content, we have to have a metamodel that essentially duplicates the content
>model anyway.

	And that's perfectly all right.  There's no rule that says you
must have a DTD for your XML documents, and for some applications you
may only care about well-formedness.  You lose something, in that the
only thing that can verify the correctness of your XML documents is
custom-written code, and it may not be obvious what the code accepts,
and XML editors can't use the DTD to assist the author, but those
factors might not be important in some cases.  For example, we have an
XML format for representing process steps, and no effort has been made
to write a DTD yet, because the current structuring is preliminary at
best.

-- 
A.M. Kuchling			http://starship.skyport.net/crew/amk/
My life is strobed like lightning by a follow-spot, and looking backwards I can
only see the corpses of the animals and birds who strutted with me on the
darkened stage and helped me fool them all.
    -- Zatara, in BOOKS OF MAGIC #1