[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Short Tags and my Email Client
I apologize for my previous posts, I am using a Microsoft Outlook Express (uh oh!) and had it configured to send as HTML which obviously was a bad idea. In any case, I fail to see how short tags does anything but reduce the readability of a file. Paul: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- After marking up several megabytes of data by hand over the last few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that <conclusion><emphasis>this</> is more <emphasis>readable</> than <emphasis>the fully tagged equivalent</></conclusion>. Of course it is all about context, which is why I think that people would (and do!) want to mix short versions and long versions just as they do in SGML, LaTeX and some programming languages. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------- I too mark up many megabytes of documents by hand and I find that for "Readability and ease of use" I much prefer long tags. This is because when faced with: <DOCUMENT><ARTICLE><ARCTITLE><FRONT><PUBINFO>.... the list goes on for ever I would MUCH prefer to see when a specific tag ends rather than just seeing an end. I often look through files which were marked up in short tag (proprietary format) and I will see 20 </> 's in a row. Which are still open? When debugging a file that was incorrectly tagged and doesn't parse there is NO way to tell which tags are open and which are closed! If I spend 30 mins going through and attempting to find which elements were closed and which ones were missed it is hardly an easy process. Long tags make debugging/proofreading much less laborious and I would contend that most people can read and process a long end tag as quickly, if not more quickly than a short tag. <PARA>This text is <EMPHASIS>more</EMPHASIS> readable than <UNDERLINE>the <EMPHASIS>next <SUPERSCRIPT>example</SUPERSCRIPT></EMPHASIS>, and is easier for a human to process and follow.</UNDERLINE></PARA> <PARA>This text is <EMPHASIS>LESS</> readable than <UNDERLINE>the <EMPHASIS>previous<SUPERSCRIPT>example</></>, and is easier for a human to process and follow.</></> In the latter case the human has to look back and see which tags are open in order to understand which are being closed. In the former, it is clear which tags are being opened and which are being closed. Once again, sorry for the HTML format I was using, I didn't even realize until Peter pointed it out... a number of times. :) Michael Alaly alaly@i... | 314.878.6474 xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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