Re: Action item on the virtues of error-handling

At 10:56 PM -0400 10/21/03, Dan Connolly wrote:


>I don't think "HTML's must-ignore has been highly successful" is
>self-evident; it has serious drawbacks.

Yes, but it's still obviously successful. Just look at the number of 
deployed HTML pages and tools in the world. As much as I appreciate 
XML's draconian error handling, one must realize that the 
non-draconianess of HTML was a key feature in getting it widely 
adopted by non-programmers, something XML has failed to achieve. I 
doubt the Web could have achieved liftoff if it were weighed down 
with draconian error handling.
-- 

   Elliotte Rusty Harold
   elharo@metalab.unc.edu
   Processing XML with Java (Addison-Wesley, 2002)
   http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xmljava
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0201771861/cafeaulaitA