XML Considered Harmful

[Peter J. Holzer]

On 2021-09-21 19:46:19 -0700, Dan Stromberg wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 7:26 PM Michael F. Stemper <
> michael.stemper at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If XML is not the way to package data, what is the recommended
> > approach?
> >
> 
> I prefer both JSON and YAML over XML.
> 
> XML has both elements and tags, but it didn't really need both.

I think you meant "both elements and attributes". Tags are how you
denote elements, so they naturally go together.

I agree that for representing data (especially object-oriented data) the
distiction between (sub-)elements and attributes seems moot (should
represent that field as an attribute or a field?), but don't forget that
XML was intended to replace SGML, and that SGML was intended to mark up
text, not represent any data.

Would you really want to write

<p>Mr. <party role="defendant">Smith</person>s point was corroborated by
Ms. <witness>Jones</witness> point that <quote>bla, bla</quote>, which
seemed more plausibe than Mr. <party role="plaintiff">Willam</party>
claim that <quote>blub, blub</quote>.

as

<p>Mr. <party role><defendant/>Smith</person>s point was corroborated by
Ms. <witness>Jones</witness> point that <quote>bla, bla</quote>, which
seemed more plausibe than Mr. <party role><plaintiff/>Willam</party>
claim that <quote>blub, blub</quote>.

or

<p>Mr. <party role><defendant>Smith<(defendant></person>s point was
corroborated by Ms. <witness>Jones</witness> point that <quote>bla,
bla</quote>, which seemed more plausibe than Mr. <party>
<plaintiff/>Willam</plaintiff></party> claim that <quote>blub,
blub</quote>.

?

I probably chose an example (no doubt influenced by the fact that SGML
was originally invented to digitize court decisions) which is too simple
(in HTML I often see many attributes on a single element, even with
CSS), but even here you can see that attributes add clarity.

        hp

-- 
   _  | Peter J. Holzer    | Story must make more sense than reality.
|_|_) |                    |
| |   | hjp at hjp.at         |    -- Charles Stross, "Creative writing
__/   | http://www.hjp.at/ |       challenge!"
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