Re: short-tag considered unhealthy

Gavin Nicol wrote:
> 
> >  - attribute values without quotes around them
> 
> God forbid. I've seen far too many HTML pages with things like
> 
>    <A HREF=http://foo.bar>
> 
> to be comfortable with this. Things like color specifications,
> style information etc. etc. will only make errors more common.
> 
> I would strongly recommned *requiring* that attribute values be
> delimted by LIT or LITA.

I second that.  When doing conversions, we end up cleaning up 
a substantial mess because of minimizations.  I assume that 
one application of XML will be to have a very consistent 
target set for translating SGML sources into.  To do this, 
we often build ad hoc tools and these tools need simpler 
models.

So, I prefer not to minimize and to disallow mixed content 
models.  Our problems start where we have to allow for loosely 
formatted documents that a customer insists look on the 
screen as they did on the page.  This is where we usually have 
to allow inclusions for font changes, pushing text around, etc.

The other consideration is cost of teaching employees how to 
convert.  The simpler the target, the better.

len bullard
lockheed martin

Received on Thursday, 12 September 1996 09:36:33 UTC