When is an attribute an attribute?

[Rick Jelliffe]

From: Jim Amsden <jamsden at us.ibm.com>


> I think it's best to treat this as an object modeling problem first, and
then
> an XML representation

Without going against object modeling or any other view, you should first
be aware of any constraints in XML (Len's comment) and in your immediate
software.

If your editing software makes attributes easy, then use attributes. If your
rendering/draft software does not support attributes well, use elements.
You can do a simple translation of your DTD and document to convert
from one form to another anyway. A DTD does not need to be set in stone.

A markup language has to reconcile data modeling needs and human factors,
with the latter being the most important.

Rick Jelliffe


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