Stephane Bortzmeyer (bortzmeyer@pasteur.fr)
Thu, 13 Jan 2000 11:19:16 +0100
On Wednesday 12 January 2000, at 18 h 12, the keyboard of Kim Lester
<kim@dfusion.com.au> wrote:
> I admit to not knowing the exact difference between the two
Technical : XML is a subset of SGML
Political : you said so
An important consequence of the first difference is that any SGML tool is ipso
facto a XML tool.
It is true for most free software (SGMLtools has a small bug in that respect)
but some commercial tools fail because they did not read the SGML standard
properly.
> XML is the new universal format for web based information.
At the present time, the above sentence is just marketing.
> The difference between XML and HTML is that HTML tags define
Not really: XML, being a subset of SGML, is a meta-language, a language to
write languages. You define HTML with SGML. You define XHTML
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/> with XML.
XML and HTML are not as the same level and therefore should not be compared.
> There will be an XML - DocBook DTD.
> An alpha version can be found at:
"Alpha" is misleading: it is unofficial, but it is well-maintained and
actually used.
> It is anticipated that XML browsers will become available
> "soon".
Nobody should hold her breath waiting for XML browsers. First, "soon" is a
fuzzy word in the software world. Second, XML can be translated to HTML
off-line (thus saving resources for the server). Almost all the XML which is
presently served on the Web was translated that way.
> XSL is to XML what DSSSL is to SGML (phew!)
Basically wrong. You can use DSSSL to process XML and this is what many people
do, since XSL is far from being ready. (Remember: XML is a subset of SGML,
therefore any SGML tool - like a DSSSL processor - is a XML tool.)
You can also (and it is much easier in XML than in SGML) write a custom script
to translate your XML to anything.
> Few/no current browsers support XML
Not relevant. See above.
> Less tools than SGML
Not true. See above.
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