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Re: which came first: content or markup?

• To: xml-dev <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: which came first: content or markup?
• From: Ronald Bourret <rpbourret@r...>
• Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:41:01 -0800
• References: <1016590048.830.70.camel@l...>

"Simon St.Laurent" wrote:

> The dominant view at the moment seem to be that documents are composed
> of nodes, and it's the nodes that are primary, not the content of those
> nodes. Document structures are containers filled with content that must
> fit precisely, not information added to a document to reflect its
> content.
> 
> I guess that's fine for what most people are doing, but it also means
> that I'll have to roll my own tools.  A content-first view doesn't seem
> very popular in the XML world at present, and I can't say I see that
> changing.  Markup now seems to come first.

I haven't ever used an HTML editor but I think this explains why I keep
hearing that none really quite makes it. It probably also explains why
so much HTML is generated by Word. People write their text, then
add/change the formatting afterwords -- in Simon's terms, they paint the
text with markup. It seems like a pretty natural way to view the world,
even the data world.

Put another way, nodes are for programmers; data is for users.

-- Ron

• References:
  • which came first: content or markup?
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

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