Re: [xml-dev] XML Redux

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

> But then looking at Mikes
>> {  authors: [
>>        {name: "Michael Kay", affiliation: "Saxonica"},
>>        {name: "Liam Quin", affiliation: "W3C"}
>>     ]
>>     abstract:<para { style : "bold" }>Here be some dragons</para>
>>     content:<section { numbers : [1,1,2] }><para>...</para></section>
>> }
> I'm not sure if content: is markup? I can see authors as a list..
> Is content: wrapping<section/>
>
>
> No. Just as

affiliation : "Saxonica"

is a name-value pair (within a map) where the name is affiliation and 
the value is a string, so

content: <section><para>...</para></section>

is a name-value pair (within a map) where the name is content and the 
value is a (textual) element.

This is what I mean about composability between structured data and 
marked-up text, without being forced to represent the structured data 
using syntax that was designed for textual markup. (Not dissimilar from 
putting XML in a column of an RDB, except that (a) the structured data 
part is more powerful than rows-and-columns, and (b) you can have 
structured data inside the text content as well as vice versa.)

Michael Kay