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Re: Foreign Names

• From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
• To: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>, "XML-DEV (E-mail)" <xml-dev@x...>
• Date: Sat, 22 Apr 2000 10:00:55 -0700

At 09:57 AM 4/18/00 -0500, Paul Prescod wrote:
>Tim Bray wrote:
>> <pedantic>they're not "tag names" dammit,
>> they're "element types"</pedantic>.  -T.
>If we are going to be pedantic, isn't it "element type names"?

Oh boy!  A pedentry contest!
If I may quote from my own annotation of the spec at XML.com:

 The Buddha-Nature of Element Types

 One can have an immensely amusing argument as to whether the Name that 
 appears in start- and end-tags (and also empty-element tags, as the spec
 (tsk, tsk) doesn't say) is the type of the element, or whether the 
 element's type is an abstract metaphysical what-not which is named by the 
 type. This is reminiscent of the debate in Lewis Carroll about a song, its
 name, what it's called, what its name is called, and so on ad infinitum.

 I am pleased by the fact that the wording in the spec ("The name ... gives 
 the element's type") can be used to support either interpretation.

Thus, your pedantry is shown not to exceed mine. -Tim


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