It seems to me that
1]there should -- or could -- be a MIME subtype for transmitting SGML
documents. In this case, one would presumably transmit first the document
instance, then the SGML declaration (optional) and the DTD, and then the
external entities, if any.
MIME already has a mechanism for this, except that the specific subtypes
of SGML-instance, SGML-DTD, SGML-declaration, SGML-entity are not explicitly
registered at this point, I think.
2]It would help if there were at least a couple of DTDs registered, so that
people sending SGML mail would not _always_ need to transmit the DTD.
I suspect that the AAP DTD -- although I don't personally like it, it
is widely used -- would be suitable for one.
I'd like another to be a DTD with which an SGML application could handle
Richtext files. In other words, I would like Richtext to be something
that, if a DTD was added, would be SGML.
This is a much weaker desire, I think, than Erik's, but I think more
readily attainable.
Actually Richtext isn't that far off SGML now, although it would *really*
help if special characters such as <nl> for newline (or is it lt? sorry)
wer represented in some other way, e.g. @<lt> or @lt; instead. The SGML
Reference Concrete Syntax uses "&" unfortunately -- I am not going to
suggest that < be used, as then every other use of & would need to be
quoted. But it would help to treat elements like <bold> differently
from special characters, whether newline, tab, or a-acute.
If people want or need to send more complex SGML, that's up to them, and if
SGML is a registered text subtype, they can do so.
Lee
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lee(_at_)sq(_dot_)com (Liam Quin) the barefoot programmer; SoftQuad Inc +1 416
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