PaulC wrote:

[...]

That's more or less what I wrote in
http://www.ruby-talk.com/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/24931
"Personally, I'd be happy to see the alternative tree parser + API
included first, with an XML writer. (Currently, I don't need SAX and 
DOM.)" etc.
; we pretty much agree. Here is a summary of what I and others see:

1. Any XML parser should conform 100% with the XML rec:
    well-formedness, encodings, Unicode, etc.
    The OASIS test suite seems to be a good way to test this.
    This is very important, so that the Ruby XML tools can play with
    other XML tools (which is what XML mainly is about).
2. Any API should conform 100% with the namespace rec, and offer
    specific features
3. It would be nice to have complete and conforming implementations of
    DOM and SAX, so parsers can be switched conveniently.
4. But personally, I'd be most happy to first see an alternative
    (REXML/JDom/...)-like tree API in the standard lib.
    (perhaps a streaming RubyWay parser+API later)
    If this RubyWay API comes as a separate lib rather than extending a
    DOM lib, it should offer at least the complete functionality of the
    DOM API,(see 2.)
    otherwise, it doesn't qualify as a DOM API alternative.
    This RubyWay API could probably use the DOM parser, and would
    probably include an XML writer.
5. So it seems we need UTF-16, UTF-8, Unicode support first,
    then drive REXML through the OASIS test suite,
    (Sorry, but I suspect there's some way to go until it passes)
    then Matz could probably include it in the standard lib.
6. Later, validating parsers could be added.

All XML people on this list should somehow reach consesus, and write it 
down, so developers and Matz can see what we want, in one place, rather 
10 threads.
Who disagrees with any of the above 6 points, or wants important stuff 
to be included?

Tobi



-- 
Tobias Reif
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