Re: Mephaph Online

Morgan Palaeo Associates scripsit:

> What is the rationale for this, btw? Quotes are superfluous for
> attributes that don't contain spaces, and nobody wants to type more
> characters than is necessary, so to my way of thinking compulsory
> quotes fly in the face of common sense. I won't accept "because it
> conforms better to SGML" as a rationale, unless accompanied with
> evidence that SGML is, indeed, ordained by God.
No, on the contrary, it's SGML that allows quotes to be omitted (and
a fortiori so does HTML).  XML requires quotes for the sake of
simplicity and uniformity: it's about removing as many options from
SGML as possible without cutting out its heart.  I give you goal 10
of the XML design:  "Terseness of markup is of minimal importance."

--
The man that wanders far                        jcowan@reutershealth.com
from the walking tree                           http://www.reutershealth.com
        --first line of a non-existent poem by:         John Cowan