The istlab-web project is a custom semi-dynamic site generator engine (wow :)) that uses XML and bibtex to describe it data, and relies heavily on XML-based technologies, such as XSLT and XPATH, for page generation.

I always liked XML, because it is strict. In each document you can provide a schema for its validation. In addition, most XML-related technologies are written in XML, like XSL and can also be validated. Nice huh?

Today, my friend Dimitris had trouble with XML. Specifically, he had an XML as input, that had an namespace and could not parse it properly. He asked me then for a valid XML file. I gave him a XSL file from the istlab-web project. All XSL files start with:

<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
	

The xmlns:xsl defines the xsl namespace. I usually copy-pasted the code, but for the first time i decided to check the URL that defines the namespace. Instead of the DTD/XSD i saw (in surprise) the following URL:

<?xml version='1.0'?>
<!DOCTYPE schema SYSTEM "http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema.dtd">
<schema xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/XMLSchema"
		targetNamespace="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">
	<annotation>
		<documentation>Someday a schema for XSL Transforms will live here</documentation>
	</annotation>
</schema>
	

Huh!?!!?! "Someday" the schema will live here!?!?? From 1999? The guys at w3c must be joking. What can i say ... ? I'm just very disappointed.