Letting Documents Throw Exceptions

Moving Away from a Code-Centered Universe

Beyond 'Wrong' XML 1.0 was very smart to order document processors to report errors and halt processing because of violations. However, documents don't have a way to identify problems in processing environments rather than in their structure.
Simplifying Diagnosis, Enhancing Reliability An XPDL processor that has a bad interaction with a processor (i.e., features aren't supported) will be much better able to tell the user what went wrong. By providing clearer information and more options, XPDL encourages programmers to provide additional options without worrying about the performance impact they'll have when unused, giving users the options they need to work with XML documents reliably.