- From: Paul Prescod <papresco@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
- Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 17:09:29 -0400 (EDT)
- To: w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org
> The idea of not being > able to have what is essentially a numeric type (ID) not be able to contain > a completely numeric value seems somewhat strange. Like my Sun ID# is all > numbers, my SSN# is all numbers and dashes, etc. It is important to remember a) SGML was about encoding *documents*. Thanks to its success we now have a broader idea abuot what a document is than we did when it was being designed. IDs in documents tend to based on textual names of things, not numbers. b) SGML's ID rules are quite flexible compared to most programming languages. (Michael Sperburg-McQueen pointed this out to me). The rule might be annoying now, but it is not "strange" if you look at it with a sense of history. It isn't too hard to work around even now. Paul Prescod
Received on Tuesday, 1 July 1997 17:09:33 UTC