- From: Eve L. Maler <elm@arbortext.com>
- Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 15:05:06 -0400
- To: Arjun Ray <aray@nmds.com>, W3C SGML Working Group <w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org>
At 03:01 AM 9/15/96 -0400, Arjun Ray wrote:
...
>Thank you. The idea is to have a *popular* language, I believe. But for
>this to happen, we have to consider the possibility of unsophisticated
>users "getting involved". They may come to XML from "outside", without
>the benefit of any structured program of appropriate training. Here, the
>critical consideration is that (bright) beginners should not be led to
>draw fundamentally wrong conclusions, nor should they be required to
>suspend any obvious impulse to declare "Gee, that's kinda stoopid"
>
><aside temptation=irresistable>
>User: why do I have to say compact="compact"?
>Guru: Because Those Are The Rules. They're Good For You.
>User: [bleep]
></>
...
I'm not sure I'm following all the intricacies of this discussion at
this point, but I do think that compact=compact is a bit of a
strawman. In this instance, the DTD was designed to optimize manual
input by taking advantage of (abusing? getting cute with?) one small
corner of SGML. A more self-explanatory and convenient design would
have been something like spacing={"compact"|"normal"}.
And I agree it would be great to have a Boolean declared value for
attributes, but this still doesn't get around cases like
style={"compact"|"normal"|"wide"}.
I don't think it's stupid or counterintuitive to start requiring that
all "parameter values" (which is how most people understand attribute
values) be passed, in quotes, along with the "parameter name" that
they apply to, especially since attribute specifications aren't
position-sensitive. It's straightforward and consistent to require
name="value".
Eve
Received on Sunday, 15 September 1996 16:25:56 UTC