- From: Andrew Layman <andrewl@microsoft.com>
- Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 13:25:31 -0700
- To: "'Paul Prescod'" <papresco@calum.csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
- Cc: "'w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org'" <w3c-sgml-wg@w3.org>
You wrote: "I think that we should start to unify and rationalize element content and attributes. SGML/XML has enough special cases and un-unified concepts as it is. "I personally feel uncomfortable with the notion that attribute are only in the language because they are "convenient". If that were the case then why do we treat them so differnt from content in the grove model, in our stylesheet languages, in our query languages, in our SGML editors, etc. In my mind, attributes are *named data roles*, like "members" in an OOP language, or "properties" in the grove model. As in the grove model, content is a special attribute, the attribute that describes the spanning tree that we call the "document hierarchy". Thus I consider moves to make attributes and elements even more different a step backwards." I agree completely. Similarly, I agree with your point that our thinking about datatypes is dependent on what we do with namespaces. Datatypes live within some namespace.
Received on Wednesday, 21 May 1997 16:25:51 UTC