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RE: Attribute Order (Was: Create XML )

• To: "'ari@c...'" <ari@c...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Attribute Order (Was: Create XML )
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:37:29 -0500

That is the explanation some advocate.  I think it is  
brain candy for those who believe these features must 
have some sound basis in science, math or practice. 
IMO, attribute usage is largely stylistic and the main 
reason the feature is preserved is to keep IDs 
attached to the element they identify.  Other means 
for doing that are messier.  The tacit presumption 
is scope.

Compromises made for a particular SGML application (HTML) 
rankled some (including me, I don't like it as a 
rationalization), but they were politically prudent. 
My only problem with attributes is that they are 
often misunderstood when object-oriented backgrounds 
are applied to markup design; thus the field/attribute 
impedance mismatch, and when used for dumps of 
relational dbs such that rows are elements and 
columns are attributes. 

len


From: ari@c... [mailto:ari@c...]

I'm not sure where I got it from, but I seem to have this notion that
character data are what a human reader should see, while markup,
including attributes, is something of a hint to software.

There are characters in a document and (meta)information about the
characters.  Some of those metadata can be predefined, e.g.,
html:title, and that leads to element tags; sometimes you need free
text, such as for an href, which leads to attributes.

So I see three things - text, predefined metadata and free-form
metadata. I can't immediately think of three more kinds of metadata
I'd want in a document.

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