I suspect this comment is right on the money. I have never come across a way
of displaying
attribute data in an SGML editor that "felt" right.
For one job I was involved in, attribute editing was such a pain that we wrote
"ConvertAttrbutesToElements" and "ConvertElementsBackToAttriibutes"
transformations:-
SGML doc -> [ConvertAttributesToElements] -> SGML doc -> [Editing
Environment] -> SGML doc -> [ConvertElementsBackToAttributes] -> SGML doc.
The fact that this is doable in a lossless fashion suggests that the
attribute/element decision
is largely a product of taste and a pragmatic consideration of the tools you
intend to use.
As for the philosophical difference, I dunno. I suspect that a Bertrand
Russel or a Kurt Godel
or a Daniel Dennet or a Douglas Hofstadter could always rustle up a
counter-example for any
hypothesis. My head hurts and I am heading at full speed past the point
where I know what
I am talking about but if we take the data versus meta-data distinction --
Is "SayingSomethingAboutThisData" data or meta-data in this case:-
<Foo SayingSomethingAboutThisData = "FALSE">
Sean Mc Grath
sean at digitome dot com