Re: A7: CDATA, RCDATA, TEMP marked sections?

> However, it doesn't solve the correct problem. I'm not so much talking about
> the case where you just want to escape some characters, but where you also
> want to label those characters. No semantic information other than "this
> is clear text" can be attached to the CLEARDATA start-tag (sic). So you need
> additional markup. This means that you are asking the HTML author, for
> example, to use markup like
> 
>   <SCRIPT><![CDATA[
> 	...
> 	var1 = "<EM>Hello world</EM>"
> 	...
>   ]]></SCRIPT>

Compared to what they use now, it is a model of simplicity, elegance and 
clarity. I don't see why anyone should think it is redudant at all. You can
put a script directly in <SCRIPT> tags if you are willing to be careful about
what characters you use. Or you can use a CLEARDATA section to simplify that
necessity. Similarly, if you want to put HTML/SGML/XML content in a paragraph,
you can either be careful or  use a CLEARDATA section. The long and short
of it is that anyone who expects the processor to "just know" how to handle
<SCRIPT> elements either 
a) has only ever used a single application, and needs to have their mind
broadened anyways, (and that application cannot be HTML, which does not
have an intuitive solution to this problem) or

b) is thinking "in DTDs", which means that they are probably already familiar 
with SGML, and probably with CDATA marked sections.

I'm beginning to agree with Charles too often. Let's go back to talking
about RE.

 Paul Prescod

Received on Tuesday, 8 October 1996 22:44:31 UTC