Re: MicroXML is for hand | automated generation

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 8:40 PM, James Clark <jjc@jclark.com> wrote:

> On Jul 26, 2012, at 9:23 AM, Uche Ogbuji <uche@ogbuji.net> wrote:
>
> > All the XML generation tools I've developed are complicated because of
> the many knobs required to cover XML.  MicroXML would simplify such code.
>
> The only thing that I have found to be a major pain point for
> generation is namespaces, but they are a pain throughout XML
> processing. Most of the time the XML that various code I have written
> generates would conform to MicroXML. (This, I remember now, is why my
> drafts have allowed > in attribute values: so that exisiting XML
> toolchains would usually generate MicroXML output if given MicroXML
> input.) But perhaps your tools are fancier than mine.
>

Well namespaces are indeed the 80% bugbear, but there are other bits. The
tools I develop allow the developer to e.g.:

* select details of the XML declaration (e.g. output encoding)
* output CDATA Sections (and not just using XSLT's specified-element
approach)
* output comments and PIs

I think TIm Bray's xmlgen also supports the above, but uses the XSLT
approach re: CDATA Sections.


> I see no reason why a goal cannot mention both, e.g.:
> >
> > MicroXML shall support the use of text editors for authoring, and shall
> also make automated generation of MicroXML simpler than XML.
>
> I don't think it's helpful to combine these two goals: they have quite
> different implications.
>
> I am not sure that automated generation is something that MicroXML
> will simplify any more than it simplifies XML processing generally.
>

OK. Agreed on both counts.


-- 
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