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Lars Marius Garshol <larsga@g...> writes: > * Tim Bray > | > | In my recollection, the main objection was that the AF syntax for > | namespacing on attributes was seen as really unattractive. > > And, truth be told, it *is* really unattractive. So AFs were rejected by the W3C on esthetic grounds. To this day, nobody has explained what's so unattractive about the AF paradigm, or the precise nature of the esthetics that found the AF solution "ugly". I've always felt that the beauty of an engineering solution has to do with things like modularity, minimality, and functionality. If these are the operative esthetic values, then the AF paradigm is really quite beautiful, and its syntax is irreproachable. Can someone please explain what, exactly, are the operative esthetic values that cause the AF solution to be perceived as ugly? I simply don't see it, and I've never seen it. I have a theory, though. I think it may have to do with the fact that many people have an unexamined and spurious idea about the generic identifiers (the tag names) of elements. It's a simple fact that the generic identifier is just an attribute value, like all other attribute values, except that it's the value of the one-and-only nameless attribute. If you react negatively to the foregoing sentence, your blood pressure goes up, and you vehemently expostulate that *THE GENERIC IDENTIFIER IS NOT AN ATTRIBUTE VALUE*, then you probably think AFs are ugly. If you are such a person, I can only say to you, as gently as possible, "In an element, whatever isn't content must be an attribute." Indeed, the functionality of naming and of uttering names is most naturally and easily done in attributes. That's why both SGML and XML are designed in such a way as to put almost all kinds of identifiers *exclusively* in attribute values. There's no special reason why only one attribute should be allowed to declare the type of an element. Indeed, there's every reason to allow elements to be instances of multiple types! There can be only one nameless attribute, of course, but that's just a syntactic shortcut. (It would have been wasteful if XML had been designed in such a way that every element had to begin with the characters: <GI= ) -- Steve Steven R. Newcomb, Consultant srn@c... voice: +1 972 359 8160 fax: +1 972 359 0270 1527 Northaven Drive Allen, Texas 75002-1648 USA
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