Title: Message
Folks,
I tend
to agree. The only real use I can see for attributes of any kind is for genuine
meta-data as eluded by Matt. I prefer the use of attributes in schema when ever
possible as I find it much easier to map the elements to databases that need to
store the data contained the UBL instance documents. It certainly makes life
easier and less confusing. What we should be specifying then are the particular
instances when to use attributes, rather than creating a rule that satisfies an
80/20 situation, i.e.: ID, IDREF and xml:Lang as espoused by
Mark.
John
Dumay
-----Original Message-----
From: Matthew Gertner
[mailto:]
Sent: Monday, 4 February
2002 1:43 AM
To: 'CRAWFORD, Mark';
Subject: RE: [ubl-ndrsc] Elements vs.
attributes: discussion kickoff
My position on this is use attributes only for
document level information. This means that for the most part only built-in
document level attributes such as xml:lang, id and idref should be used and
elements should be used for all other transmitted data. My understanding
is there are parsing, ordering, and performance issues surrounded with
attributes. I also believe that by enforcing attributes at the document
level, we will provide clarity, avoid confusion, and enable better
structuring.
Here, here! My tendency would be to throw
down the gauntlet and ask: why ever use attributes? Most of the reasons raised
by Gunther are no longer relevant now that XSD lets elements do most of what
attributes can (i.e. be simple types, hold enumerations, have default values,
etc.). Using both elements and attributes is just confusing for the user,
developer and others, poorly supported by authoring environments, etc. I would
suggest that use of attributes be restricted to real metadata: identifiers,
links, etc. as proposed by Mark.
Matt
