----- Original Message ----- From: "Lisa Dusseault" <lisa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Tom.Petch" <sisyphus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Stephane Bortzmeyer" <bortzmeyer@xxxxxx>; "ietf" <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 9:19 PM Subject: Re: XML updates Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-simple-xml-patch-ops (An Extensible Markup Language (XML) Patch Operations Framework Utilizing XML Path Language (XPath) Selectors) to Proposed Standard > I would be happy to encourage work on IETF-wide guidance for XML > usage (I guess that's what I'm doing now?). The Apps area has an XML > directorate and supposedly we have some XML expertise to call on -- > sometimes we do XML usage reviews for the other IETF areas. > Lisa, I have seen references to the XML directorate before but have not knowingly (in Routing or Ops) seen output from it. What I have in mind, what it might perhaps do, is provide guidance - or to say that there is no clear guidance - in areas such as - Schema language (XSD, RELAX NG, ...) - namespaces (overuse of) - namespace prefix standardisation - element or attribute or text to instantiate an object - object identification (uniqueness, persistence, mutability, multiplicity of .. - using containers to provide scope for vendor extensions - selecting, adding, deleting nodes with XPath, filter expression, X..... - tables and table indexing - aggregation of objects for bulk operations - specifying conformance - versioningof object definitions - access control to objects I see WGs struggling with these types of issues (although the WGs themselves may not agree with my perception that it is a struggle) At the back of my mind is the difference between ASN.1 and SMI (as used in MIB modules). Cutting down on the permissible ASN.1 constructs has made MIB modules much less complex than they otherwise would have been (as described in RFC1155, a brilliant piece of work). RFC3470 is good, but I think that there is now a need for something more. Tom Petch _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf