RE: attribute nodes

> Why is it that an attribute node has an element as a parent
> node but is not the child of this element node?

Because the WG was uninspired in its choice of terminology. It was perhaps a
mistake to use two terms "parent" and "child" (which in biology are the two
directions of one relationship) for two different relationships that are not
inverse of each other.

But all analogies break down anyway: why don't nodes have TWO parents?

I think the WG at one time had the element being "owner" of the attribute,
rather than "parent", and the attribute had no parent. But that led to an
unnecessary extra axis, and made it more difficult to define "..", and more
difficult to define the ancestor axis. Perhaps the parent axis should have
been renamed "owner". But then someone would have objected to children being
"owned"...

Mike Kay


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