shesafish

	Monday, November 04, 2002

Another place I found resources for my XML element vs. attribute dillema was the Wiki boards. I don't know why I didn't think of this before (perhaps to resist the blackWikihole of time suckage..)

From Category Xml I jumped to Xml Links where I found this:

• http://www.xml.com/axml/axml.html Annotated XML Spec - very readable and really helps describe why the spec is what it is

Another noteable:

•  http://www.ucc.ie/xml/ an FAQ by some W3C people

My only fear is that I will find more questions instead of answers.

1:59:25 AM  comment [] | Topics: XML 

Just found s burst of great resources on my element vs. attribute dillema.

They all stem from this article at oasis-open.org:

SGML/XML Elements versus Attributes: When Should I Use Elements, and When Should I Use Attributes?

"Experienced markup-language experts offer different opinions as to whether general principles can be given for choosing attributes over elements, and if so, what principles are most useful."

I don't know if this is a good sign or a bad one, but apparently I am not the only one facing this dillema. Under the article's commentary section these articles are listed (among others):

• The SGML FAQ Book 5.10. "When do I use an attribute versus an element?"
  
• [January 02, 2002] "Attributes Versus Elements: The Never-ending Choice." By Sean McGrath (CTO, Propylon). In XML In Practice [ITWorld Newsletter] (December 13, 2001).

  "Few topics re-occur more frequently, wherever XML developers congregate, than the attributes versus elements debate. The more experience you have of developing XML systems, the murkier the waters surrounding this question. The innocent sounding question can, and does, spark off debates that touch everything from pragmatism to epistemology to mereology and back again. "

• [March 03, 2000] "The role of attributes in context determinancy." By Martin Bryan (The SGML Centre).

  "One of the most commonly asked questions in the SGML/XML world relates to when you should use attributes rather than elements to store data."

• "The Attribute/Text Conundrum. 'Document-Centric' vs. 'Data-Centric'."

  "From a programming perspective, text is a pain.  With the DOM, it's substantially easier to process:
     <Name first="Adam" last="Bosworth"/>
  Compared to:
     <Name>
     <First>Adam</First>
     <Last>Bosworth</Last>
   </Name>

  "A general guideline to follow is that text should be present on an element only when you're absolutely sure that the element won't have any child nodes."

• [March 19, 2002] "Elements versus Attributes." By Gunther Stuhec (SAP). 18-March-2002. 17 pages. Published as one of four papers in "UBL NDR Position Papers." By Members of the UBL Naming and Design Rules Subcommittee (NDR SC). 16-March-2002.

  "A common cause of confusion, or at least uncertainty, in the design of a schemas is the choice between specifying parts of the document as elements or attributes..."

1:27:46 AM  comment [] | Topics: XML