Mailing-List: contact tomcat-dev-help@jakarta.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Message-ID: <380E0294.DBE4CF46@algroup.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 18:57:40 +0100
From: Ben Laurie <ben@algroup.co.uk>
Organization: A.L. Group plc
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: new-httpd@apache.org
CC: Tomcat Development <tomcat-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: Re: XML configuration revisited
References: <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910161343220.572-100000@localhost>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 11 Oct 1999, Ben Laurie wrote:
> 
> ...
> > > Our idea at this point is to build a simple DTD that incorporates both
> > > the Apache config details and the future web.xml DTD. For the time
> > > being, we will edit the XML config by hand and write a simple parser to
> > > spit out httpd.conf and jserv.conf/jserv.properties/servlets.properties.
> > > We would like some feedback and see if anyone else is already working on
> > > this, possibly as part of Jakarta.
> >
> > It has been discussed on the Tomcat mailing list, but so far without
> > much in the way of conclusions.
> >
> > The major issue I see is that Apache's configuration is extensible, but
> > DTDs are not (at least, as far as I understand them). So, some kind of
> > XDTD (to coin an acronym) is needed. I believe such things do exist, but
> > I don't know much about them. However, the fact that they are plural
> > worries me :-)
> 
> Well, actually by introducing the DTD you kind of shoot yourself in the
> foot. If you for a moment assumens that your XML is 'correct' and contains
> no semantic errors (well formness can be cheched on the fly) then you
> can dynamically build the correct tree in memory flexible enough and
> without the need for a DTD.
> 
> This sort of assumes you have tools to do this. Obviously those tools
> would like to have DTD's or some XSL or XML like data semantics construct
> to drive the tool itself; so that you can add, say the configuration of
> module X, by simply splicing in some DTD like info.. causing the tool to
> add the right widows, fields and widgets.
> 
> But to return, IMHO adding, or even mandating a DTD from our side smells
> a lot like shooting ourselfes in the foot.

At the risk of repeating myself... I don't think we need DTDs but we
need some way to describe the format of the XML.

Cheers,

Ben.

--
http://www.apache-ssl.org/ben.html

"My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those
who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the
first group; there was less competition there."
     - Indira Gandhi