Ampersand connector in XML

[Alison Lennon]

Tim Bray wrote:
> 
> At 12:24 PM 3/30/99 +1000, Alison Lennon wrote:
> >Could someone please explain to me why the ampersand group connector
> >of SGML was not included in XML.
> >
> >It seems to me that the absence of this connector results in
> >significant problems for many applications based on XML that want to
> >use unordered lists of elements.
> 
> Simply because it's a lot harder to implement than all the other
> content model apparatus.  In fact, back in SGML days, it was well-known
> to be buggy in several rather good and successful SGML products.  Yes,
> its absence does represent a loss in expressive power.  At the time,
> it seemed like a good trade-off.  To me it still does, although it
> has particularly irked the (large and growing number of) people who
> want to use XML to model relational semantics. -Tim

Is it likely to be included in later versions of XML? In other words,
what are the options for applications which need to use unordered
lists - SGML?

Alison
-- 
Alison Lennon, Senior Research Engineer
Canon Information Systems Research Australia Pty Ltd (CISRA),
1 Thomas Holt Drive,North Ryde,Sydney, NSW 2113.
Ph +61-2-9805-2931, Fax +61-2-9805-2929

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