xml-dev - Re: Common XML (was Re: Document Feature Requirements)

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

At 04:39 AM 4/12/00 +0800, Rick JELLIFFE wrote:
>This is what I don't get. Everyone knows that you don't put data in
>comments. 

Actually, lots of folks I've found don't know that.  

HTML has a long history of comment abuse in the form of server-side
includes, for example.  'Hiding' the content of scripts and style sheets
inside comments is common practice, even encouraged.  In that world,
comments are merely things that don't get displayed, not things that
disappear.

>It mars what otherwise could be a useful and laudable document.  A
>comment is not something that "makes it difficult to ensure that varying
>applications will receive the same view of a document."  

I think there's enough difference of opinion on the issue that it's at
least worth noting, and I still can't say I've found a good enough story
for putting them back in the core.

>(Please note that Simon is also persuing, through the Web Standards
>people, attempts to make developers support standards fully. So I hope
>no-one thinks that he is ignoring the solution of making developers
>support the XML Spec properly. To use an Australian expression, he is
>walking both sides of the barbed-wire fence.)

That Australian expression is painfully evocative, not to mention accurate.

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
Building XML Applications
Inside XML DTDs: Scientific and Technical
Cookies / Sharing Bandwidth
http://www.simonstl.com

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