xml-dev - #2 Re: [SML] Whether to support Attribute or not?

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

 From: Don Park <donpark@docuverse.com> 

>I believe it is now time to address the question of
>whether Attribute should be supported in SML or not.
 
Since you are not asking for use-cases, the only logic
driving SML is reductionism. The result can only
be a language with 1 encoding and 1 tag and the 
minimum repertoire for names.

SML = (data | "<" ASCII* ">" SML "<" ASCII* ">"  )*

Given this, discussion seems utterly futile.

If people are serious, they should first establish some use-cases
of where XML fails.  This will also bring out the ramifications
of simplicification.

In any case, it seems to me that reductionism and anti-reductionism
are often character traits rather than technical positions capable
of being debated. A reductionist will say "if attributes do not mean
something they mean nothing" while an anti-reductionist might 
respond "it is a DTD/Schema function to allocate the particular
roles attributes/elements according to the methodology of the
DTD/schema designer: it is a source of richness for there to be
a syntactic disrinction which is methodogical neutral and available."


Rick Jelliffe


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