Re: SD1 - Short End Tags [fmt]

At 01:49 PM 16/05/97 -0700, Jean Paoli wrote:
> Proposal: For readability and convenience when dealing with database
> records, the element name within an end tag is optional. That is,
> </NAME> is same as </>.

In principle, I have to oppose this, on the grounds that
(1) there should always be only 1 way to do anything in XML, and
(2) </> makes the DPH's life harder.  Someone argued saying "yes, but
    this is not the type of app where the DPH is an issue".  I don't
    buy that for a second - one of the virtues of SGML (and XML) is
    that you don't, in your markup, presuppose the final audience
    for or usage of your document, and
(3) while </> might be more aesthetically pleasing for authors
    of DB interchange software, but if we hack XML to add sugar for
    each class of application, we're going to get something pretty
    baroque pretty fast.

Having said that, </> would be, in something like Lark, awfully
easy to implement, and if I got voted down on this one I wouldn't
cry too much. - Tim

Received on Monday, 19 May 1997 02:59:19 UTC