<XML:SCRIPT>

[Simon St.Laurent]

David Megginson wrote:
>They're not quite the same -- CDATA sections simply shift the parsing
>mode, so that the only delimiter recognised is "]]>" (or "]]").  That
>said, they are purely lexical and somewhat unattractive, and exist
>only as a convenience for people who write XML in regular text
>editing tools.
>
>Once there are XML editing tools in wide-spread use, they will
>probably hide this, so naive authors will just type
>[...good example omitted...]

If and when there are XML editing tools that are any good - and my pessimism 
comes from my rather miserable experiences with even the latest HTML tools - 
this may be true.  In the meantime, lots and lots of experienced coders, the 
ones most likely to gravitate to XML, are still going to be hand-coding.

I at least hand-edit all of my 'final' HTML - the XSchema drafts are just 
coming through Word's lousy Save as HTML option because I don't have time to 
hand-code them too. (The final drafts I'll pick clean by hand.)  I really hope 
we can do something for the 'naive author' sometime soon, because otherwise 
they'll be awfully confused.

This is turning into more of an XML-L discussion; while I've enjoyed being 
cranky, I doubt this discussion will bear much more fruit for XML-Dev.

Simon St.Laurent
Dynamic HTML: A Primer / XML: A Primer / Cookies


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