Re: XHTML2 MIME type from Chason Chaffin on 2003-05-13 (www-html@w3.org from May 2003)

From: Chason Chaffin <cchaffin@infoserv.itis.uh.edu>
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 16:08:44 -0500
To: www-html@w3.org
Message-Id: <14F874B2-8587-11D7-8D0A-003065E0687A@infoserv.itis.uh.edu>

On Tuesday, May 13, 2003, at 04:02  PM, Karl Ove Hufthammer wrote:
>
> If you *regularly* use the alpha character, it's ~no more
> difficult to remember &#945; than &alpha;[1].
>
> And, if you *don't* regularly use the alpha character, you would
> have to look it up anyway.
>
Not quite. I can remember &Alpha;, it sticks in my hand whereas &#945; 
does not, for obvious reasons. i don't use non-ascii references often, 
but when I do, entities named &rdquot; and &mdash; are much easier to 
recall without looking up a reference than a numberical entity.

I don't think an argument can be made that the character references 
aren't at least somewhat useful for people who handwrite their code, 
and additionally, they make it far easier for a novice to read code. 
have you ever tried teaching an HTML beginner to type numerical 
character references?

-chason

Received on Tuesday, 13 May 2003 17:14:49 UTC