Re: RE: Re: Re: "*|@*|text()" vs. "node()"

> > Thanks Dimitre, is there a logical explanation of writing the
> > spec in this
> > way? Why attributes are no childs of its element?
> 
> XML, for historical reasons rooted in typographical markup, distinguishes
> "content" from "properties". Content is the information intended for the
> reader, properties are extra information intended for the software
> processing that information. This history explains why we have the split
> between elements and attributes (logically, attributes aren't necessary at
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> all), and explains why they are treated differently in the object model.
  ^^^^

Attributes are necessary whenever there's a need to represent an ***unordered***
collection of properties of an element.

Generally, it is not possible to specify a DTD and validate an xml document if the
order of elements cannot be guaranteed. The solution is to model such unordered
collections as attributes.

Or am I wrong?

Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.



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