[SML] Whether to support Attribute or not?

[Michael Champion]

>
> Because avoiding the difference between attributes and elements
> simplifyes the addressing and *every* realted API ( Xpath, Xslt, DOM,
> XQL e t.c. )  a *lot*  + it  avoids 'multiple levels of encoding' problems
e t.c.
>

That seems like the best reason to remove attributes from "SML" to me too.

A couple of potential downsides ...

If SML parsers don't recognize attributes, then we can't have an SML-ized
XHTML.  Does anyone care?  How about WML?  I for one would care if WML was
incompatible with SML ...

How about XSLT?  It would be nice if stylesheets to turn SML into something
displayable were themselves parseable as SML.  I'm pretty sure that you
couldn't write a useful XSLT stylesheet without using attributes ....

I'm inclined to allow attributes in SML itself but to have a "non-normative
appendix" that is a fairly integral part of the document explaining that
attributes are supported only for compatibility reasons and discouraging
people from using them in "new" SML applications and outlining the various
attribute-related pitfalls to avoid.

Obviously I'm still open to arguments on either side.


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