Date: 02 Mar 2000 22:40:58 +0000 From: "Henry S. Thompson"
<firstname.lastname@example.org> To: XML Developers' list
<email@example.com> Subject: Structured attributes [A moment's
thought will lead to realisation that this is displacement
activity on the part of the XML Schema: Structures editor, who
certainly has better things to do, but I need to get this off my
chest.] Why not structured attributes in XML? Why structured
attributes? Well, we all know the comparison between elements
and attributes as they stand: Elements Attributes ordered
unordered non-unique unique structured unstructured There are a
lot of contexts in which the first two properties of attributes
are desireable, but the third is a serious constraint. Here's a
design sketch for adding structured attributes: 1) Reserve a
family of hitherto unusable names as the names of structured
attributes: On balnace I favour names with an initial full-stop
(.), but there are arguments in favour of using an initial colon
(:) instead; 2) Use element synta