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Re: Tags and Types (was Re: Re: maps)

• To: <xml-dev@l...>,"Joe English" <jenglish@f...>
• Subject: Re: Tags and Types (was Re: Re: maps)
• From: "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@a...>
• Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2002 17:13:33 -0400
• References: <00c801c23d80$d1c21160$0201a8c0@n...> <E17c9p6-0007Ts-00@m...> <200208062107.g76L7N332434@d...>

Joe English wrote:

>
> Jonathan Borden wrote:
>
> > Different formats each have their advantages. The clear advantage of
> > explicit tags, is that the meaning is less ambiguous. e.g.
> >
> > <date>
> >     <day>02</day>
> >     <month>02</month>
> >     <year>01</year>
> > </date>
> >
> > vs.
> >
> > "02-02-01"
>
> In the first example, did you mean 1 CE or 2001 CE?
> If the former, under which calendar should the day
> and month be interpreted?

I've not specified, but that isn't needed. The former example is tagged, and
so the "01" may easily be interpreted with respect to the <year> element,
and its associated semantics (for example a schema might tell us, or a
namespace name might reference something like

<div id="year"><p>Years in the Christian calender, to which 2000 is
added</p></div>

>
> Sorry, I really don't see any decrease in ambiguity
> in the first form.
>

Ambiguity is _decreased_ not eliminated because aside from which year we are
talking about we know which lexical value is intended to represent _some
year_ as opposed to _some day_.

If it didn't reduce ambiguity _some_ then there would hardly be a need for
XML, or SGML for that matter.

Jonathan

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Tags and Types (was Re: Re: maps)
    • From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>

• References:
  • Re: Tags and Types (was Re: Re: maps)
    • From: "Jonathan Borden" <jborden@a...>
  • Re: Tags and Types (was Re: Re: maps)
    • From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
  • Re: Tags and Types (was Re: Re: maps)
    • From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>

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