[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Can XML Schemas do this?
That makes sense. Attributes are unsuitable for some scenarios, but for most cases I agree. Personally, I would like to see schemas that allow attribute ordering as well, so that streaming processors could take advantage of that too :-) > -----Original Message----- > From: Paul Prescod [mailto:paul@p...] > Sent: Tuesday, January 21, 2003 11:59 AM > To: Joshua Allen > Cc: Eric van der Vlist; Jeff Lowery; Bryce K. Nielsen; xml-dev > > Joshua Allen wrote: > > ... > > > > That's an interesting point. I think the "user perspective" argument > > becomes more difficult to back up when you have element content that > > involves lots of optional children -- in those cases the user often > > wants to be able to insert whichever elements matter without necessarily > > worrying which order they come in. > > I find that these are most often handled by attributes. Probably part of > the tension in this discussion comes from people who have a natural > aversion to attributes trying to use elements as attributes. > > > ... Imagine for example if command-line > > apps were written to expect a certain order to command-line arguments. > > It would certainly save people from having to write getopts.c, but would > > actually be an *impediment* to usability and user expectations. > > IMO, the usability problem with command lines is that sometimes options > are order sensitive and sometimes they are not. XML makes a clear > distinction: attributes are not order sensitive. Elements are. Except > when they aren't. Eric and others in this thread are arguing for the > "except when they aren't" becoming more common. > > Another argument in favour of enforced ordering: decent XML editors will > insert the required elements in for you in the right order. But they > can't if order isn't enforced, because they don't know what order the > author wants. That's the irony of this discussion...we're saying "order > doesn't matter therefore force the user to choose it." > > If you spend a little time in a decent XML editor you'll probably find > that enforcing an order does the user a favour by letting their tool > help them better. On the other hand, attributes are usually ideal for > the cases where order REALLY DOESN'T matter and the XML editor will > convey this by presenting the attributes in alphabetical order. > > > There are some scenarios where order naturally matters, and others where > > the user *assumes* it will matter, but I think there are plenty of other > > cases where users would be unpleasantly surprised by finding that order > > matters. > > Most of these can be handled with attributes. In a few cases the > limitations of attributes are really a problem but more often people > avoid them out of a minimalist distaste for an "extra feature." If XML > had structured attributes this whole discussion would go away. > > Anyhow, the nature of the original question makes me nervous. We aren't > talking about a content model of the form: > > <!ELEMENT x (a? & b? & c? & d? & e?)> > > As I understood it, he wants more complex content model particles in the > options (that's why xsd:all isn't good enough). In my opinion, the > resulting content model is going to be quite confusing. XSD's > limitations may be arbitrary but IMO, they are (accidentally) pointing > him towards better content model design. > > Paul Prescod >
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