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> OK, now I'm kinda curious about the tag minimization and why that's even
> helpful. I've worked with both the SGML and XML versions of Docbook
> and, from an authoring standpoint, they were almost identical. Granted,
> we didn't pull any of the tricks that you suggest, but given that we
> wanted the authors to make intelligent decisions about semantic markup
> (such as tagging GUI elements, error messages, file names and
> extensions, etc.), we didn't think it was such a hot idea to hide the
> tags at all. I suppose we could have hidden such things as paragraph
> tags, but why bother? Most folks learn to handle the tagging in pretty
> short order.
It depends very much on the application and on the taste of the individual.
In some applications it is appropriate to see the tags and in some it is
appropriate to minimize them. We have worked on projects where the markup
was so dense (of necessity) that the normalized form of the document was
five or six times the volume of the minimized version. The normalized
version was very difficult to read and would have been just about impossible
to write. Minimization was the only effective way of getting that kind of
structure marked up effectively.
Different people also have different tastes. There are some people who
cannot stand not to see every tag. Others prefer to minimize them radically.
I'm somewhere in the middle. I hate having to put end tags on paragraphs,
lists, headings, and table structures. I always forget them. As writers, we
are very much attuned to where things start and much less so to where they
end. SGML makes my life much easier just with simple tag minimization. It is
a major productivity booster, and removes a major source of frustration.
And it is important to note that as a language designer, you have the choice
to include the minimization features or not, and that as an author, you have
a choice to use them or not.
Your mileage may vary, but the point is that SGML gives you the choice and
XML takes the choice away.
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Mark Baker
Stilo Corporation
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