Re: element content vs. element attribute

Gerard Freriks (gfrer@luna.nl)
Sun, 21 Dec 1997 11:04:36 +0200


> My question is,
>given the "nothing to markup" scenario, which is more appropriate?, when
>is each
>more appropriate?, and why?:
>
><blah>1234</blah>
>
>or
>
><blah value="1234" />
>

>Any general guidelines?
>

In my view:

XML (or any other Tag-language) will be used to express:
- Datamodels of a part of the universe, which handle the relationships
between entities with the Model. It defines the Context of the information.
- with Terminology (a set of Tags) which give names to the entities
- with Rules to obey.

It will be likely that the above examples will be Tagged like:
<blah> <number> 1234 </number> </blah> if rules of the model allow it
allow it.
or
<blah> <ASCII> 1234 </ASCII> <blah>

<blah> will be an entity from a Model indicating a context
<number> will be an atribute indicating how things are coded

Attributes will be derived from other Models.

'Nothing to markup' is nothing.

It equals chaos.

Greetings

Gerard Freriks

Gerard Freriks,huisarts, MD
C. Sterrenburgstr 54
3151JG Hoek van Holland
the Netherlands Telephone: (+31) (0)174-384296/ Fax: -386249
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