Hubert: I know you've already seen this response from Adam, but it 
didn't get CC'd to the list.  Hence this second message.

------- Forwarded message follows -------
From:           	"Adam Herzog" <adam@herzogdesigns.com>
To:             	<dan@langille.org>, <develop@freshports.org>
Copies to:      	<hubert@feyrer.de>
Subject:        	RE: (Fwd) Re: Volunteers wanted for NetBSD-
FreshPorts interface
Date sent:      	Thu, 28 Dec 2000 01:38:37 -0500



On 28 Dec 2000, at 3:50, Hubert Feyrer wrote:

> Wouldn't it be clearer to not stuff all that data as parameters into the
> MESSAGE and FILE tags, but rather give them sub-items(or what's that
> called?):

This was one of the questions I was struggling with when I started 
designing the DTD. When should I use an attribute, and when should I 
use an element? I don't really have much experience designing DTDs for 
XML, so upon receiving this message, I set out to find a definitive 
answer.

I'm happy to report, there isn't one.  This appears to be a religious war
among developers, so I read and learned what I could, and made a 
decision. I'm going to use attributes for just about everything. Given 
what I've read, there are going to be some changes made to the DTD, 
but probably not what you'd expect.

The advantages that I've found include easier parsing, faster parsing,
better data modularization (I think I might have made that word up) and
better control over data integrity.  The main disadvantage that I've found
is readability.  Given that XML was designed to be data-centric and to be
read by a computer, I don't find that to be a problem.

So, I guess that's where I stand; responses are always welcome...

-Adam



--
Dan Langille
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