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- From: "Joshua E. Smith" <jesmith@kaon.com>
- To: "XML Developers' List" <xml-dev@ic.ac.uk>
- Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 16:26:25 -0400
In my XML-conformant programming language (Nimble, mentioned here a couple
days ago at http://www.kaon.com/SDK ), I did what seemed to me a pretty
neat thing using attributes and elements together.
In many cases, an object (represented by an Element) needs to reference
another object. I allow the Nimble programmer to do this either as:
<Image name='splash_screen' etc... />
<Application image='splash_screen' etc... />
-or-
<Application etc...>
<Image etc.../>
</Application>
-or even-
<Application etc...>
<Image name='splash_screen' etc... />
</Application>
<SomethingElse image='splash_screen' etc... />
The first approach is generally only useful when a machine is generating
the program (export from a 3D modeling tool, in my case). Or if the Nimble
programmer is name-happy.
The second is just like XML-RPC. Simple, elegant.
The last approach is particularly powerful, since it allows me to create
graphs in what would otherwise be just a tree language.
The simple ID and IDREF DTD constructs (along with an #IMPLIED) then allow
validating XML editors to make sure you use defined names.
Doing this without attributes would be a real trick, and not nearly as
elegant.
So while I agree that sticking to just elements or just attributes can be
elegant in some contexts, neither rule is going to be the most beautiful in
every case.
-Joshua Smith
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