Re: XHTML 1.0 rfc

[Martin-Eric Racine]
> 1) XHTML uses lower-case for tags and attributes
> 
>    IMHO, this goes against _every_ previous attempt to produce
>    clear, human-readable HTML source.  UPPER-CASE is _much_ easier
>    to read, as it clearly establishes a difference between URIs or
>    plain text and ATTRIBUTES or TAGS.

Please read the archives for this list; it's already been done to
death.  Summary: some people prefer upper-case, some prefer lower-
case.

> 2) add a / to empty tags, e.g. <br /> and <hr /> 
> 
>    Here, this would break the explicit statement that such tags are
>    never encapsulated.  If it's already stated, why complicate it?!
>    If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

This is non-optional.  XHTML is the re-casting of HTML in XML instead
of SGML; in XML, empty element tags end in />.  If you don't do that
in XHTML, then it's something else; maybe something worth doing, but
not what it set out to do.

> However, requiring _all_ attribute values to be quoted, plus the
> mandatory inclusion of closing tags (where it was previously made
> optional) are _very_ good ideas that will certainly clarify _many_
> things and help bullet-proof HTML rendition on any browser.

Which was exactly one of the goals of XML.  The empty element tags'
syntax is part of that goal; in arbitrary document types (which you'll
increasingly see on the Web), you need a distinctive syntax to
distinguish a start-and-end-tag from a start-tag, since it's no longer
possible to have a list of all known empty element types.

-Chris
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Received on Monday, 26 April 1999 10:27:44 UTC