Re: [gentoo-project] Call for Agenda Items -- Council Meeting 2016-02-14

[Dirkjan Ochtman <djc@gentoo.org>]

On Tue, Feb 2, 2016 at 3:18 PM, Justin Lecher (jlec) <jlec@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Could you please sum up the thread and come up with some precise
> question we should discuss or vote on.

The question is: what language should we use for XML validation in the future?

There are two main contenders: RELAX NG (with a compact and an XML
serialization) and XML Schema. Of course conversion between these
schema formats is possible, but the question is what the canonical
language should be and what other formats would be provided (and how).

Summary:

- I contended that RELAX NG compact serialization is more readable,
and that DTD and RELAX NG validation are equally fast. I don't have
much experience with XML Schema, but I do have a conversion tool for
RNC (compact RELAX NG) -> RNG (RELAX NG XML syntax).
- Michał has used both RELAX NG and XML Schema, and prefers the
latter. It's more popular, and it seems that cross-referencing things
is not supported (trivially) in RELAX NG, whereas it should be in XML
Schema.
- Robin prefers XML Schema, but can live with both.
- trang seems to be a pretty decent tool for schema conversion, but it
doesn't handle XML Schema as an input language (likely because of the
complexity of XML Schema).
- There is a standard for referring to RELAX NG or XML Schema schemas
from XML documents, which would be useful for tool authors.
- emacs nXML mode works only with RNC schema, which is a reason for
Ulrich to prefer it.
- Brian seems to like RNC for readability/flexibility reasons.

I hope other will jump in if they feel I missed
something/misrepresented their opinions.

Cheers,

Dirkjan