Cart
[Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries]
> James Clark wrote: "RE: - they ought to have be able to structured > values, just like elements (i.e. one could view the content of an > element as a special unnamed attribute), .." > > Agreed. Attributes are highly useful as a means to attach metadata or > annotations to elements. Metadata itself may have structure and may > have metadata, hence the utility of structured attributes and attributes > of attributes. > > The obvious syntactic device (in a future version of XML) for a > structured attribute is something that looks much like an element, e.g. [Interesting example snipped] I can understand and respect the motivations for this, but I personally do not believe the benefits would be worth the disruption of such a fundamental aspect of XML. I manage structured information through attributes all the time. The way I do this is to make the attributes contain a term from a controlled vocabulary maintained elsewhere: frequently in RDF, sometimes in just other general XML formats. I know that some folks here cannot abide such solutions, but in practical work, they do very well for me, and for many others. In fact, I think this pattern improves design, and that fully atructured attributes would tend to encourage designs that suffer from excessive coupling. That said, potential misuse is never really a solid primary argument for avoiding any feature. -- Uche Ogbuji Fourthought, Inc. http://uche.ogbuji.net http://4Suite.org http://fourthought.com The open office file format - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/librar y/x-think15/ Python Generators + DOM - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/01/08/py-xml.html 4Suite Repository Features - https://www6.software.ibm.com/reg/devworks/dw-x4su ite5-i/ XML class warfare - http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=6965
|
