Letters

Crash-Proof Penguin

A couple of months ago, you had printed a picture of Tux holding my new “United We Stand” Linux license plate for my car [Letters, LJ, February 2003]. After I put the plate on, I had Tux looking out the rear window of the car so he could wave to drivers who were behind me. On Monday, June 30, I was rear-ended by a drunk driver. Everything from the backseat to my rear bumper does not exist anymore. I looked for Tux, but I feared he was lost in all the crumpled metal. When my wife and I went to take pictures of my car, the tow-truck driver asked me if I had a penguin in my car. He handed Tux over to me and said he found him on the side of the road on a patch of grass. He was completely uninjured, not even a speck of dirt on him. I'm impressed that Tux survived the accident. I wish he had given me some warning about the DUI driver. As for me, I walked away with a bump and two scratches on the forehead.

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Paul Ammann

Miss 2.4

On January 4, 2001, Linus Torvalds released the 2.4 kernel into the wild. On that same day, my daughter Jennifer was born. Two and a half years later, she's learning very young that Linux is a special part of her life.

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Robert Yannetta

Thanks for the SSH Tip

I just wanted to say thank you for the “Eleven SSH Tricks” article in the August 2003 edition of Linux Journal, in particular the tip about port forwarding. I have wanted to have a way to use my company's SMTP server while I am traveling, but for obvious reasons that is not allowed. Now I can do it. Thank you for pointing that out to me. It's one more way that open source makes life better.

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Greg Willden

Dad, What Was make dep?

I thought you'd be glad to see how little Dana is already enjoying Linux Journal during her very first holidays, in Croatia. She is literally devouring your articles!

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Jordi Porta

XML Terminology

I noticed a mistake in the third paragraph of “A Template-Based Approach to XML Parsing in C++” in your June 2003 issue. In it, the author states that “a validating parser scans the XML file and determines if the document is well formed, as specified by either an XML schema or the document type definition (DTD). A nonvalidating parser simply reads the file and ignores the format and layout as specified by either the XML schema or the DTD.” “Well formed” simply means an XML document adheres to the syntax required of all XML documents, such as all beginning tags are matched with end tags, or otherwise properly terminated, while “valid” refers to an XML document that is “well formed” and in addition meets all the criteria set out for its specific contents in a schema or DTD (hence the term “validating parser”). All parsers must ensure XML is “well formed”, but the determination of “validity” is optional.

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David Gutteridge

John Dubchak replies: You're correct in that I didn't make clear the differences between well formed and validity with respect to XML syntax and documents. As a result, the wording and information provided may have caused confusion for some readers owing to the incorrect distinction. As you've correctly stated, all parsers enforce XML syntax to ensure that they are well formed. Well formed by definition is a document that is capable of being parsed by a parser that conforms to the W3C XML specification. On the other hand, validation is the process of verifying the XML document according to the constraints that are defined in either a document type definition, DTD or an XML schema. In order to parse an XML document it must be well formed. The XML specification clearly defines that a conforming parser will encounter a fatal error when attempting to parse a document that is not well formed. Validation is optional. Thank you very much for the feedback and for taking the time to comment on the article.

More on Content Management, Please

I have been subscribing to LJ since 1998, and it is the only subscription I have kept for such a long period. The magazine is excellent. It has had its ups and downs, but the most important thing is that it keeps getting better and better over the years. Keep up the good work! One of my favourite columns is At the Forge. I am not sure what Reuven's plan is, but I would like to know if LJ has any intentions to add more about open-source content management systems (CMSes), CMSes in general or to take a closer look at CMSes that support blogging. In my opinion, the topic is hot; there is a huge interest and growing support within the Open Source community for CMSes. It could be worthwhile to write a little bit more about it.

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Ratko Kovacina

Keep reading for more in Reuven Lerner's ongoing series on open-source CMSes. He covers Bricolage alerts this month on page 12. —Ed.

Doc's Politics

When are you going to get rid of the political and biased editorials of Doc Searls? I was a subscriber two years ago but never renewed my subscription because of him and his political diatribes. A magazine about Linux should be just that, not a personal forum for politics.

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Matt