Re: Content v. attribute

Dave Winer (dave@userland.com)
Mon, 26 Oct 1998 08:02:55 -0800

I consider it a flaw of XML that it has two ways to do hierarchy, one much
more powerful than the other. In working with other companies about formats
you can get into endless meaningless debates about whether it's better to
use attributes or just stick with <tag> structures. When I design XML forms
for our own internal applications, I have generally found that if I use
attributes, I end up regretting it and switch over to straight tag
hierarchy. You always have the option of adding a structure where a scalar
used to be when you go that way. With attributes, you're at the end of the
road, no way to have structure, so I agree with John Cowan entirely, you
never know what's coming down the road, so it's better to leave some room
on either side. Dave

At 10:47 AM 10/26/98 -0500, you wrote:
>Vrijland, Jacco TRC-OGRS/2 wrote:
>
>> In this previous structure I have not
>> yet incorporated a general description of the data (possibly quite a
>> long string).
>
>One good reason for modeling long descriptions as character data
>rather than attribute values is to incorporate markup into it.
>Descriptions are often the better for a bit of rich text: they
>need things like emphasis and even hyperlinks. For a DTD building
>block that provides such things, see
>http://www.ccil.org/~cowan/XML/ibtwsh.dtd .
>
>--
>John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org
> You tollerday donsk? N. You tolkatiff scowegian? Nn.
> You spigotty anglease? Nnn. You phonio saxo? Nnnn.
> Clear all so! 'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)
>
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