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Rob Lugt wrote:
>
>...
>
> 1) Allow </> as an abbreviation for any closing tag. After all
> <xsl:template>...</xsl:template> is rather long-winded and the element name
> in the closing tag is completely redundant. I believe the closing tag
> syntax is probably a throw-back to SGML compatibility, but if XML 1.x
> discards that baggage then I think this would be a good thing to do.
Funny how SGML gets the blame for whatever people dislike about XML.
Actually SGML worked exactly as you propose. </> was a legal SGML
end-tag. It had other short-forms too. Here is a document that used (and
described) just about all of them:
http://www.nyct.net/~aray/sgml/short/shorttag.txt
Actually, it was the creators of XML who decided not to keep any of
them.
You can get the full story from one of the "fathers of XML":
http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/xml-dev-May-1998/0311.html
As you know, your second complaint is also something that XML removed
from SGML. Your final complaint is the only one inherited from SGML.
Paul Prescod
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