- From: Michael Sperberg-McQueen <U35395@UICVM.CC.UIC.EDU>
- Date: Thu, 12 Sep 96 13:25:38 CDT
- To: James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>, W3C SGML Working Group <w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org>
James's design criterion sounds like a good one. Empty end-tags and unquoted attribute values do indeed fall into the class of things I had looked at and said "It's not too hard, let's leave it in", but which are also clearly inessential. Any doubt I had in my mind went away when I asked myself "Well, if this feature isn't in XML, will you be forced to write a pre-processor for it, to translate your working format into XML?" There are certainly things I can imagine writing preprocessors for, such as multiple attlist or element declarations, conditional sections, or other things the TEI DTDs currently do with marked sections and parameter entities. And my sense that others besides the TEI need such functionality might be a reason for including that function in XML. Or maybe not: maybe some things we need can be embodied in such preprocessors, rather than built into the core of XML. But on empty end-tags and unquoted attribute values, I think James has persuaded me. They are useful for minimizing keystrokes when using dumb software; they are *not* necessary or even particularly useful in providing better data structures. Deep-six 'em. -C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
Received on Thursday, 12 September 1996 14:35:15 UTC