29 March, 2000
The release process is simple, we just put the DTD on the web, and post some documentation ("what it is"). This can be done quickly once the DTD is considered ready.
Discussion of the revised DTD
There was a review of the changes from Quincey, Group, Dataset, Datatype, etc. A variety of changes were identified, mostly simple to implement. No major problems were found.
The items to revise include:
These changes will be done.
General Discussion:
We reviewed again the fact that XML does not support numbers, and that some kinds of relations are not supported by the basic XML (e.g., there is no way for the DTD to express a list with exactly three members, each different.)
We reviewed again the fact that there is no generally accepted practice for representing data as text. It was noted that the HDF5 DDL does not handle data in any detail.
Those interested in how to represent numbers and valid ranges in XML, please review the following references:
XML-data
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-XML-data/
XML Schema Part 0: Primer
http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlschema-0/
Resource Description Framework (RDF)
http://www.w3.org/RDF/
Resolution:
The current release of the <Data> element was reviewed and discussed.
Overall, the current DTD was difficult to understand, incomplete, and probably incorrect. It appears that we lack a fundamental conceptual model for what we are trying to do. It was noted that the HDF DDL does not handle data
Consequently, the release of the <Data> is deferred.
Proposal:
Revise the DTD, and remove all but a very simple <Data>
element. Release without the <Data> markup, circa April 15.