Goodbye DTDs

Volume 6, Issue 88; 27 Sep 2003

So long, PSGML, hello nxml.

In the course of a full life, one must be prepared to abandon one's baggage.

Today, I take the plunge, I turn my back on DTDs. To celebrate, I ripped all the PSGML-mode elisp out of my .emacs file. I ripped XSL-IDE mode out too. I'll be using James' nxml mode from here on out.

Next up: retooling xjparse, the command-line script I rely on to validate XML documents, so that it does RNG validation instead. This'll bang me right up against the “how do I know what schema to apply” problem. But that needs thought anyway.

I won't be completely free until DocBook has moved to RELAX NG. And I'm going to be haunted by the occasional entity declaration for a while too.

But it feels good anyway.