[Zope-dev] Don't try to "improve" or "reinvent" XML. Stick with the standard.

Fri, 10 May 2002 12:36:21 -0700

From: "Marc Lindahl" <marc@bowery.com>

> > You would need something to close off the 'if' statement, otherwise, a
> > document full of 'if' statements and no 'else' ones could fill up a
stack
> > needlessly.
>
> What's so bad about that?  The stack wouldn't carry over after
<html></html>
> or <body></body> - couldn't practically more than 1000's - insignificant!

If you're not going to use correct XML syntax, which REQUIRES balanced tags,
then you shouldn't use a syntax that looks like XML but isn't.
The world does NOT need another language that looks almost like XML, but
that is impossible to process using standard XML tools.
Not balancing the tags is as bad as requiring the attributes to be ordered:
it's simply not compliant.
If you're going to invent a new non-standard non-XML syntax, PLEASE don't
make it look ANYTHING like XML.
Otherwise you wrongly set the users' expectations that they'll be able to
use standard XML editing tools, which is false advertising.

If you really want to invent a new syntax that doesn't have the restrictions
of XML like balanced tags and unordered attributes, then please don't make
it look anything like XML, and please fix all of XML's other problems while
you're at it. Don't just force users to suffer with the bad parts of XML
without getting the benefits of interoperability with XML tools. That's the
worst of both worlds.

    -Don