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Re: Mixed content in data-binding (Was: Re: Interest

• To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Subject: Re: Mixed content in data-binding (Was: Re: Interesting pair of comments
• From: Bob Foster <bob@o...>
• Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2005 11:41:32 -0700
• Cc: 'Ed Day' <edday@o...>,Elliotte Harold <elharo@m...>,Michael Kay <mike@s...>,'Peter Gerstbach' <peter.gerstbach@g...>,'XML-dev' <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE0720714E@h...>
• References: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE0720714E@h...>
• User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317)

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> Some years ago during the IADS work, our chief designer said that 
> any language (at that time, SGML) that enabled mixed content 
> should be eliminated from the universe.  Instead, the follow
> on, XML, thrived and won.  While I understand the parser-centric 
> data model position, history is not on the side of eliminating 
> mixed models.

There is no such thing as a mixed model. This is a notational issue.

<p>This is an <i>example</i> paragraph.</p>

actually represents a node structure like this:

{element p}
   {text}This is an {/text}
   {element i}
     {text}example{/text}
   {/element i}
   {text} paragraph.{/text}
{/element p}

That is the model; the former is a notational convenience. SGML is rife 
with notational shorthand designed to make documents more pleasing to 
human writers. XML eliminated some of it. The human interface oriented 
features it didn't eliminate - mixed notation, general entities, default 
attributes - remain to annoy us and periodically reignite permathreads.

XML would be improved if it had two dialects: the current cuddly 
language and a stripped down, possibly more verbose subset that did 
nothing but convey a structured node sequence as text.

That's the permathread this and most others here boil down to.

Bob Foster




> The mixed data model is very common and impossible to 
> eliminate unless the designer owns all ends of the pipes. 
> This isn't likely given a web distribution.   Even 
> in intranets, we see this a lot.  It comes down to 
> where in the pipeline the detection of mixed data models 
> occurs.
> 
> The problem of schema profiles will be that the profiles 
> have to be named.  A lot of process rot ensues.
> 
> len
> 
> 
> From: Ed Day [mailto:eday@o...]
> 
> I suppose this is case of "document-centric" vs "data-centric" application
> thinking (I am in the latter camp).  It would seem this might be a good
> place to start when breaking down schema profiles.
> 
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• References:
  • RE: Mixed content in data-binding (Was: Re: Interesting pair of comments
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>

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