Re: Mixed content

On Mon, 16 Sep 1996 08:15:33 +0000, Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote:

>At 02:02 PM 16/09/96 GMT, Gavin Nicol wrote:
>>><p>
>>>Text of p.
>>></p>
>>>
>>><p>Text of p.</p>
>>
>>My understanding is that these would return *different* parse
>>results. We could (if it is so desired) make it an application
>>convention to strip leading and trailing whitespace.
>
>I agree.  <p>Listen to my heart beat.</p> would *not*, in this cenario, be
>the same as 
><p>
>Listen to my heart beat.
></p>
>
>Is this a problem?  It's certainly easy to explain.
I think it is a problem. It will mean that anyone creating XML with any of the
popular non-XML/SGML-aware editors will have to be told why he can't put tags on
a separate line from data. If XML allows PIs, you will also have to explain why
a PI can't be on a line by itself. (And so on for marked sections and inclusions
and comment declarations.)
>
>With the proper SGML declaration, they will also parse differently in SGML.
>
>The SGML setup makes it easy to set markup apart with whitespace, making
>it easily visually distinguishable.  This is good.  The price is that it
>becomes difficult for ordinary people to tell when some white space is
>actually data.  This is bad.  The trade-off is probably reasonable, but
>XML need not choose the same trade-off.
You will still wind up trying to explain the equivalent of SGML's RE/RS handling
rules, but with the additional burden of forcing the user to implement the rules
himself.

The _only_ way to kill this pernicious beast is to eliminate mixed content,
which XML can easily live without.

Best regards,

Charles
--
Charles F. Goldfarb * Information Management Consulting * +1(408)867-5553
           13075 Paramount Drive * Saratoga CA 95070 * USA
  International Standards Editor * ISO 8879 SGML * ISO/IEC 10744 HyTime
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Received on Monday, 16 September 1996 20:59:59 UTC