Re: Request for review: XOP

Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
> It is therefore unreasonable to expect XML APIs such as DOM to do more 
> than process the XML content of a XOP envelope. Doing so would be 
> actively harmful to the XML community. It would pollute DOM with 
> features that have no function when processing XML, as opposed to XOP. 
> Processing XOP requires a XOP API, not an XML API.

DOM Level 2 HTML also does not deal with XML. It's the DOM all the same. 
SMIL and SVG DOMs have non-XML features, yet they integrate well, 
strongly, and usefully with the Core DOM. If that's pollution, it would 
seem we are much polluted already, and people are liking it.

Amongst the clever things DOM 3 Core adds is DOM Features[0]. If one 
were to develop a supplemental DOM chapter that would add support for 
the direct retrieval of binary data, and define a feature string for it, 
then with no modification to the Core DOM implementations could 
nevertheless support XOP, and make it cleanly available to users.

That would be something for XMLP to develop though, but I reckon it 
wouldn't require much of their time.


[0]http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-DOM-Level-3-Core-20040407/core.html#DOMFeatures

-- 
Robin Berjon