Re: XHTML and CASE-SENSITIVITY

At 4:22p -0800 02/26/99, Robert Rothenberg wrote:
>On 24 Feb 99, Walter Ian Kaye wrote:
>
>> At 2:09p -0800 02/24/99, Daniel Austin wrote with bad line breaks:
>> >	While I sympathize with those who would like HTML to use upper case
>> > tags, this is unlikely to change. XML is case sensitive, and therefore the
>> > case of element names must be specified in one way alone.
>> > Given this, lower case was chosen.
>
>> But WHY was lower case chosen over upper case?
>
>Well, one could argue that many developers will still handroll a lot of their
>web pages (including XML pages) and since it's easier to type lowercase
>element names among regular text than to switch to uppercase.
>
>And since XML, XHTML, et al are relatively new, probably a lot of
>developers are experimenting with text editors.
>
>Ergo, lowercase element names.

What you don't realize is that I do ALL of my HTML in a text editor. It's
either that, or write my own HTML generators (because there is nothing on
the market that would allow me to do what I do). And I prefer upper case.
In fact I *hate* lowercase tags, but I'm trying to leave emotion out of
this. :)

>> And why were the thousands(?) of web developers around the world never
>> consulted about this, or given the chance to vote?
>
>Because the thousands of web developers would argue and argue and an
>agreemement would take forever. Sooner or later somebody would have to
>put their foot down and make a decision.

No arguing, just numbers. I'm putting together a poll, and will announce
the URL after I finish the CGI. (I wish I knew how to tabulate the results
-- maybe gallup.com or something will tell me how?...)

>> We're the ones who have to use it, so to not consult us about this is
>> extremely rude, uncaring, and mean.
>
>How do you use it? Using a special editor which generates the elements
>for you and even highlights syntax? If so, it's a moot point.

No, I use a scriptable text editor. Time to write some scripts, eh?

>But since XML is an Internationalized application (as in Unicode text),
>uppercase vs. lowercase means nothing. Elements need not be in English,
>and not all languages have uppercase/lowercase characters. Folding case
>would create a lot of overhead and potential bugs.

I'm not talking about XML in general, as that is *expected* to be machine-
generated. HTML has always had the feature of hand codability.

-Walter

Received on Friday, 26 February 1999 20:06:18 UTC