On 11/16/13 7:15 AM, David Sheets wrote:
>> Asking for a source to demonstrate a pure negative is not reasonable.
>
> I was not asking for a demonstration of a negative i.e. "Prove that
> XML was not designed for nodes". I was asking for *any* evidence that
> the claim did not hold.
"Refute" was the wrong choice of words, then. "Refute" usually asks for
a strong demolition, not just a glancing blow. That was why I made the
same complaint John just did.
> I am really quite surprised that a group of otherwise logical people
Never expect people to be logical. You can barely expect computers to
be logical.
> have such a hard time understanding that the statements "XML was
> designed for nodes" and "XML was designed for elements"
At least you're learning the local language, but...
> have nearly zero distinction
To you, perhaps. To folks who regularly bounce back and forth between
elements in markup and nodes in data models, they're cousins at best.
> with respect to the question of "Can element omission
> be used to model optional elements?"
I think you meant to say "Can element omission be used to model optional
[data structures]".
"Can", of course. Well, sort of. The interesting question isn't "can",
but "is it a good idea?". There's no general answer to that - it all
depends on what you want to do and in what context.
The absence of a real answer may also have contributed to the chaos in
the conversation.
Thanks,
--
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/
