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From: Roger L. Costello [mailto:costello@mitre.org]
>Is an attribute a "building block"? Or, is an attribute "in-lined
metadata"
>on a tag - analogous to scribbling a note on a Lego building block to
>describe its content?
In the eye of the beholder. An attribute can convey content as many a
relational db output shows. It's a cheap way to model tables. In theory,
a name and a content node are all you need
nameofcontainer value value value value
and now it is up to the application to interpret that, or even just
value value value value
for a very hardwired system.
>> Also, in practice, building up complex systems requires namespaces
>Is a namespace a "building block"? Or, is a namespace simply more metadata
>on a tag - analogous to coloring a Lego building block to distinguish it
>from others?
It is more metadata but it isn't simple. Consider the combination of the
xmlns att and the behavior tag in CSS required to support attached behaviors
for namespace support in IE. I think the answer to your questions relies
on the application framework viewpoint. XML in and of itself can be as
simple as you suggest (and even simpler) because in and of itself, it
doesn't
do anything but mark data. A complex system can be described in nothing but
ones and zeros as long as a compiler/interpreter etc are there to give it
meaning. You are on the boundary of the definition of 'system' where
meaninfulness is determined selector by selector and all of these may
not be part of the same system (is the human reading this sentence part
of the web?).
len
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