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Re: How important are CDATA sections?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: How important are CDATA sections?
• From: David Megginson <david@m...>
• Date: Sun, 6 Jul 2003 10:23:14 -0400
• In-reply-to: <3F0749BC.6090807@p...>
• References: <3.0.6.32.20030704233806.00b1b2c0@p...><3F0749BC.6090807@p...>

Paul Prescod writes:

 > > As XML evolves, I'd be happy to see CDATA disappear. XML doesn't
 > > need any syntax constructs only for the sake of
 > > convenience. That's what we have XML editors for.
 > 
 > May Goldfarb save us from those who want to protect us from the
 > syntax by making the syntax so unbearable that we need protection!

Seriously, CDATA sections were only a small part of a whole load of
gratuitously obfuscated syntax carried over from SGML to XML 1.0 (as
important as the syntax seemed at the time to us SGML types), but the
cost of making major incompatible changes to XML now would far
outweigh the benefits that we might get from pruning, so we'd best
learn to live with it all.

Let that be a warning to all future specification writers.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson, david@m..., http://www.megginson.com/

• References:
  • How important are CDATA sections?
    • From: Gustaf Liljegren <gustaf.liljegren@b...>
  • Re: How important are CDATA sections?
    • From: Paul Prescod <paul@p...>

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