DOCBOOK: Re: XML Schemas and docbook documents

[Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>]

/ Yann Dirson <ydirson@fr.alcove.com> was heard to say:
| In other words, I was thinking of extending the syntax of attributes
| so that we could write:
| 
| <article
|   <class>whitepaper</>

I've seen this suggested elsewhere recently. Specifically, that we could introduce
a new syntax using some prefix character for "attribute elements". That you'd make

  <article class="whitepaper">

the same as

  <article>
    <_class>whitepaper</_class>

(If you selected "_" as the prefix character.)

While this would solve the problem from a purely pragmatic point of
view, I'm not sure I like what it does to the XML data model and the
complexity of applications.

| >   <xh:p xmlns:xh="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml";>...</xh:p>
| > 
| > If you did that, and gave xmlns: attributes special treatment so that
| > they didn't have to be declared (because they aren't really
| > attributes), you'd be in pretty good shape.
| 
| But maybe there is a fundamental problem here, in that something that
| isn't really an attribute should not use attribute syntax...

Yeah, I would have preferred processing instructions to magic
attributes, but that's not the way the Namespaces Recommendation
turned out.

                                        Be seeing you,
                                          norm

-- 
Norman Walsh <ndw@nwalsh.com>      | When told of a man who had
http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/ | acquired great wealth, a sage
Chair, DocBook Technical Committee | replied, 'Has he also acquired the
                                   | days in which to spend
                                   | it?'--Solomon Ibn Gabirol