RE: [xml-dev] On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re: [xml-dev] RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

*chuckle* 
 
You must be unfamiliar with program configuration files. Here's what a stereo typical configuration file looks like 
 
<config>
 
 <!-- here are some settings --> 
 
<settings />
 
<!-- examples -->
 
<more-settings />
 
<!-- examples, description --> 
 
<even-more-settings />
 
</config>
 
The fact that some programmer decides that since every config block as comments preceding it uses that as significant to the logic in his application is no more the fault of a "badly designed format" than a format is to blame for people who use the existence of uppercase characters in an element name, whitespace delimiting elements or choice of quote character for attributes as significant. 

________________________________

From: Bill de hÓra [mailto:bill@dehora.net]
Sent: Thu 3/6/2003 4:34 AM
To: Dare Obasanjo
Cc: Alaric B. Snell; Rick Jelliffe; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] On the promotion and demotion of information items (was Re: [xml-dev] RE: Take 2 - How do you replace comments from XML?)



Dare Obasanjo wrote:
> I'm curious. Have you ever seen a machine.config file? If so I'd like to know why you think config file comments should be placed in an attribute simply because you seem to have some aversion to using certain aspects of XML.
> 
> I can't imagine anything uglier than putting a multiline comment into an attribute simply to satisfy some perverse need to not use XML comments.

Even if what you're saying made any sense, I suspect it'd be
irrelevant. The point is the OP is saying in a roundabout way  'I
have to hack on comments and treat them as not comments to get
something done'. That suggests:

  * an abuse of the document
  * a badly designed document

Bill de hÓra