Re: <plaintext> tag obsolete? I think not! (fwd)

(Chris, to avoid spamming on this list, we closed it to non-subscribers.
Thanks for your understanding. JK).

Old-Date: Fri, 9 Jan 1998 11:20:20 -0500
Message-Id: <199801091620.LAA25274@geode.ora.com>
From: Chris Maden <crism@ora.com>
To: www-html@w3.org
In-reply-to: <3.0.1.32.19980109092542.007abd90@hadji.prismrsc.com> (message
	from Jamie Gerdes on Fri, 09 Jan 1998 09:25:42 -0600)

[Jamie Gerdes]
> Can anyone please explain to me WHY the <plaintext> tag has been
> forgotten?!?!

Because its intended behavior can not be made legal.  Plaintext (and
xmp and listing) intend to allow *any* markup except their own end-tag
as data.

In SGML, an element declared as CDATA ends at the first '</'
delimiter.  If the name in that end tag doesn't match the CDATA
element's type, it's an error.  That may not seem like a very good
idea, but it's in the Standard and we have to live with it for now.

See question 2.8 in _The SGML FAQ Book_ which addresses exactly this.
(Steven J. DeRose, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 0-7923-9943-9.)

-Chris
-- 
<!NOTATION SGML.Geek PUBLIC "-//Anonymous//NOTATION SGML Geek//EN">
<!ENTITY crism PUBLIC "-//O'Reilly//NONSGML Christopher R. Maden//EN"
"<URL>http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/crism/ <TEL>+1.617.499.7487
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Received on Friday, 9 January 1998 11:51:06 UTC