[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re

• To: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>,<xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re: RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)
• From: "Alaric B. Snell" <alaric@a...>
• Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2003 10:23:13 +0000
• In-reply-to: <00c301c2e399$11eb7420$4bc8a8c0@A...>
• References: <BKELLDAGKABIOCHDFDBPCEFECCAA.danny666@v...> <00c301c2e399$11eb7420$4bc8a8c0@A...>

On Thursday 06 March 2003 04:30, Rick Jelliffe wrote:

> MS considered the information in the comments not important enough for
> people to use for processing.  Because XML has comments, they did not
> have to throw the information away just because it does not fit into their
> model: they jsut note the information as a second-class citizen.

Hmmm. I think they should have just put the information in attributes and 
been done with it. People are free to ignore attributes they're not 
interested in.

> Now along comes someone else who thinks "Oh, actually I can make use
> of that information!"  The idea that people choose the information they
> want in an XML document does not only mean that people demote (strip)
> information items they are not interested in, it also can mean that people
> promote information items that the data provider was not interested in.

Well, if the information was specified as information rather than as 
expendable human comments that happen to have machine-readable information 
stored in them AND NOWHERE ELSE, then there'd be no need to promote anything 
:-)

What happens to this .Net config file if you strip out the comments? 
Presumably something breaks, unless the file isn't really a config file, but 
is just a representation of information stored in some other format elsewhere 
so the information isn't truly lost?

> Cheers
> Rick Jelliffe

ABS

-- 
A city is like a large, complex, rabbit
 - ARP

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re: RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)
    • From: "Cavnar-Johnson, John" <JCavnar-Johnson@s...>
  • Re: On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re: RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

• References:
  • RE: RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?
    • From: "Danny Ayers" <danny666@v...>
  • On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re: RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)
    • From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>

• Prev by Date: Re: Registered Namespace prefixes
• Next by Date: Re: Life as an SGML Neanderthal (WAS RE: The subsetting h...
• Previous by thread: Re: On the promotion and demotion of information items (wasRe: RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)
• Next by thread: Re: On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re: RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread