Re: attribute order (RE: Syntax Sugar and XML information models)

[Jeff Greif <jgreif@befree.com>]

This is a reasonable order to choose as a convention when some
attributes have been defaulted, but it's not the only possible choice
(for instance, you could use DTD order with non-explicit non-defaulted
attributes omitted).  Whatever choice you make in this case would be
just a convention, and some application would need something different.
For instance, an XML editor might let you mess around with explicit
attribute order after you've entered attributes, or just preserve them
in time order of entry.  Should the person editing have to know that
different orders have different meaning to the recipient?  What if
different orders are necessary for different possible recipients?

Jeff


> Depending on how it was implemented, I don't think it would be
> difficult to
> preserve the order of the explicit attributes and append the defaulted
>
> attributes, thereby preserving both sequences.
>
> Gets a bit tricky when the order of instance usage is different from
> the
> order of declaration, of course.
>
> Simon St.Laurent - Associate Editor, O'Reilly and Associates