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Re: short-tag considered unhealthy
Michael Sperberg-McQueen wrote:
>
> On Fri, 13 Sep 1996 07:56:39 +0100 Martin Bryan said:
> >Just to make it clear to everyone the consequences of what you are
> >saying, you will be forcing me to enter <OL compact="compact"> rather
> >than <OL compact>. (Note that <OL "compact"> is invalid SGML!)
>
> Yes.
>
> Since the main application area of XML is expected to be program to
> program communication, losing <OL compact> does not seem to me to be a
> big problem. Even if users do want or need to type XML documents in
> ASCII editors, I think it's better this way.
>
> The posts on HTML discussion groups in which users try to explain to
> each other the meaning of constructs like <OL compact> have convinced
> me, at least, that requiring all attribute value specifications to take
> the form attribute-name, value-indicator, quoted-string would result in
> much less confusion and would be a net gain for everyone concerned.
I concur.
My experience is that typing is less of a concern than exception
handling
to someone who is using a text editor. IOW, trying to explain to
a user why some elements are minimized, some are not, some have to be,
quote some values, don't bother with these, and on and on is really
much less conducive to using the text editor than reducing keystrokes.
I prefer consistent entry to saving keystrokes even when using a
text editor because I want to think about content and type by habit.
len bullard
lockheed-martin
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