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Exactly right. The visual layout matters and indentation that does not match structure causes confusion. Tagged text is not bad for machine processing (marginally bit slower than lisp-like syntax a would guess) but terrible to look at. The idea of matching the opening and closing with a name has merrit because you can visually match the open and close of a tag. The problem is that the tagging is so verbose the context is often lost as ones eye moves around the screen -- you can't see the forest for the trees. Indentation adds to human comprehension. Syntactic decoration largely decreases human comprehension. Future generations will thank us for adopting a standard interchange format (XML) and curse us for its size and difficulty to read. Tagged text is great for machine-generated files which humans only have occasional need to look at, which I guess is the use-case for XML. > -----Original Message----- > From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@s...] > Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 10:38 AM > To: xml-dev@l... > Subject: Re: Suggestions for a slightly less verbose (and > easierto author) XML > > Parsing theory and human capabilities aren't always a good > match. There > are, of course, lots of tools that deal with simplifying > these problems... > > Simon St.Laurent > "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue > > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an > initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> > > The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription > manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl> >
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