Re: do you use pi's?

"Liam R. E. Quin" wrote:
> 
> I might have argued for:
> <XML>
>   <stylehsheet href="xxx" type="yyy">
>     <menu>Big Type</menu>
>     <desc>Large type and clear colours for easier readability</desc>
>   </stylesheet>
> </XML>
> 
> When XML was being developed, this was argued against because it
> "polluted the element name space" by using the name "XML" -- which was
> later reserved anyway.  With namespaces in place, an XML element looks
> a lot more desirable to me.

The problem isn't that an "xml:stylesheet" element would stop someone from
creating their own "xml:stylesheet" element. It's that an "xml:stylesheet"
element would have to be inserted into each and every DTD. The XML
encoding declaration element type would have to be inserted in every DTD
at every level where the encoding could change!

Processing instructions are useful because they are invisible to the
validator. This gives us a rule of thumb of where how they should be used:
when a structural instruction should be invisible to the validator.
Examples include editor-specific meta-information that is invariant across
document types, formatter-specific information (e.g. page breaks) that is
invariant across document types and so forth.

 Paul Prescod


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