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

[Mitch Amiano <mitch.amiano@agilemarkup.com>]

my 2 cents

With the availability of relatively low cost or free XML editors having 
good content completion, I see no advantage even from the standpoint of 
data entry. Just for instance, with oXygen's content completion will 
close tags with about three ( < /  {ENTER} ) keystrokes.

</> makes the closure of an element anonymous. To the human reader, a 
long span of content in which the start tag is no longer near the 
anonymous end tag makes a visual scan useless. 

When a (start|end) tag is missing the anonymous end tag makes it harder 
to distinguish which element is incorrect. This might not mean as much 
when using a tree editor, but when using a source mode editor or 
text-based script (print/puts/echo) to generate content, or plain old 
damaged files, you're likely to loose more time trying to debug.  For 
that matter, if I textually cut-and-paste a fragment with an XML end tag 
so that its position is swapped outside of an ancestor element 
structure's end tag, the validation process is likely to give errors; if 
I textually cut-and-paste the same as an anonymous end tag, the 
validation process may not know anything is wrong at all if the end tags 
still match in number. This can happen for instance when you select a 
line of content but you don't notice that the end tag got selected too, 
and you drag and drop.





Melvin Chin wrote:
> May I seek some opinions on this topic/proposal?
>
> ===================================================================
> To extend XML spec just a little to permit use of "</>" (GXTC)
> to be placed wherever it is permitted in the current XML spec
> to place a closing tag.  The semantics will be to effect a
> closing of the nearest open tag before the position of GXTC.
> ===================================================================
>
> Any opinion is fine, useful, crazy, nonsense, should be done,
> must not coz it's going to break many things ...
>
> I could see some good use of it, but do note the deep potential
> impact it may bring.  Would like to hear from you.
>
> Thanks.
>
> cheers,
> mc
>
>
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