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

Re: Include data that may be objectively generated someday?

• From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:41:25 +0000

 >More generally, what will be the consequence of adding this element to 
the Book XML vocabulary?

It's an open invitation to tag abuse: someone will discover that nothing 
breaks if they use this field to hold a readability metric for the book, 
and so they will use it for that, or for something else.

Of course, "tag abuse" is a loaded term. I have seen examples where tag 
abuse delivered superb new functionality in a system at very low cost. 
But perhaps that could have been achieved without tag abuse if the 
designers had had more foresight.

Michael Kay
Saxonica

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: Include data that may be objectively generated some day?
    • From: "David Lee" <dlee@calldei.com>

• References:
  • Include data that may be objectively generated some day?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>