Re: [xml-dev] Generic XML Tag Closer </> (GXTC)

[David Carlisle <davidc@xxxxxxxxx>]

> and that MathML defined a special fine-parallel markup
> via id-href
Linking between xml elements using using xlink is hardly an example of
non-xml use.

> _because_ original parallel markup become non-manageable in
> size for minimal realistic documents.

But that has nothing to do with xml verbosity or tag minimisation (which
would only give linear savings)  if you don't use the "parallel" markup
and instead just give the complete presentation and content mathml
version of each formula, then, if you do that all the way down the
subexpression tree you get exponential increase in encoding size,
whatever markup you use.


> I just fail to understand how at the one hand one can claim that
> redundancy and extra verbosity of XML is a non-issue whereas at the other
> hand own XML folks promote non-XML alternatives.
verbosity isn't an issue in XML (so </> doesn't gain you much) but that
doesn't mean that alternative syntaxes are not useful, relax ng
compact syntax is a lot easier to write than the xml syntax)


> About editing XML via special editors. If this is a satisfactory solution,
> why so many special non-XML syntaxes in the market? XUL is promoting
> alternative syntaxes, now MathML 3 WG will work in an alternative non-XML
> syntax for wikis and blogs...

alternative linear syntaxes serve the same function for people using
text editors (or simple text boxes on a web page) as keyboard shortcuts
in GUI editors: they provide a way to enter the stuff with a minimum
amount of effort. A wiki may allow you to type ThisLink to generate
<a href="ThisLink.html">ThisLink</a> but it's the (x)html that's served
and which is important, not the particular wiki syntax used in authoring.
The same would be true of an enhanced wiki syntax that allowed you to
type 1+2 and have it generate <mn>1</mn><mo>+</mo><mn>2</mn>

David