[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: SGML queries
Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: > Since we often design for people who barely > bother to understand what the brackets are for, > using a fully minimized element seems risky > unless one has full control of all the places, > people, and processes in which it is used. I agree, and I'd be reluctant to release a very economical DTD for purposes unknown, but that's mostly a usability issue, I think. Safety first is in the interest of the majority. My favourite minimisation example is OmniMark's original markup of Microsoft's Cinemania CD. The DTD was complicated, heavily minimised and almost totally shortreffed. The 14 or so editors relied initially on structure/syntax diagrams on butcher paper pasted on the walls to mark up data, but quickly came to rely on the intuitive nature of the shortrefs and the patterns they formed. They didn't understand SGML or the DTD, and would probably have been horrified to see the complexity of the normalised data. Ten years on, I still feel that was an elegant and (probably) cost effective approach. Head to head, a comparable team doing the same markup in XML wouldn't stand a chance. -- Regards, Marcus Carr email: mcarr@a... ___________________________________________________________________ Allette Systems (Australia) www: http://www.allette.com.au ___________________________________________________________________ "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Einstein
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