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Re: A little wish for short end tags (Was: RE: SDD bogus)

• From: Paul Prescod <papresco@t...>
• To: xml-dev@i...
• Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 07:52:35 -0400

Marcus Carr wrote:
> 
> Me either, though I'm not sure if that matters.
> I don't want short start tags, I don't like short start tags and I have never
> (intentionally) used short start tags, but unless I have misunderstood you, the reasons
> you have given above don't seem sufficient basis for voting them down while supporting
> short end tags. If (as I'm sure most of us believe) these issues are decided primarily
> on the basis of intelligent discourse rather than gut feeling, it would appear that
> there is not yet enough to separate short start tags from short end tags. If gut
> feeling does come into it, then so be it - I can accept that, I just wasn't aware that
> was the way the process works.

Call it gut feeling. Call it years of experience. Call it common sense.
Call it a simple matter of drawing a line somewhere just for the sake of
drawing the line. It doesn't matter. In short: the perceived and observed
usability and usefulness of short-end tags is high and that of short
start-tags is low for a variety of reasons. If nobody on the list
disagrees with that fundamental point then I don't really see why we
should prepare an argument against *just in case*. Nobody wants short
start tags, and even if they did, the working group wouldn't put them in.
I'm sure a simple poll would reveal unanimous agreement on that issue.
It's really that simple.

Markup language design is not at all precise, and is influenced much more
strongly by subjective factors than by definitive arguments. I expect that
designing languages to manage the interface between human beings and
computers can only be done subjectively.

 Paul Prescod  - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Can we afford to feed that army, 
 while so many children are naked and hungry?
Can we afford to remain passive, 
 while that soldier-army is growing so massive?
  - "Gabby" Barbadian Calpysonian in "Boots"

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