xml-dev - Re: What is W3C's official position on use of PI?

[Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>]

"Liam R. E. Quin" wrote:
> 
> Yes.  This can be good and bad.  There's been a tendency in the SGML
> world to use them like significant comments -- if you've ever seen a
> large document with <?Pub Stuff> scattered all over it, you'll know
> what I mean.  The usual reaction is that people in such environments
> write scripts to remove all the processing instructions.

I tend to consider the term "significant comment" an oxymoron in the text
processing context. If something is flagged as data-model-invisible it
should be data-model-invisible -- completely. Still, in my classes I've
borrowed your idea and turned it around. I say that comments (the familiar
concept) are a type of processing instruction designed for the processor
called the "human brain." Other software should not expect to understand
them and should ignore them.

> I agree, and in some ways this could be where namespaces go, I think.

Please see my recent proposal in another message. I think it formalizes
that
idea.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for only himself
 http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Earth will soon support only survivor species -- dandelions, roaches, 
lizards, thistles, crows, rats. Not to mention 10 billion humans.
	- Planet of the Weeds, Harper's Magazine, October 1998

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