Re: Many different syntaxes in XML - is that good language design?

On 07/03/2022 15:52, Pete Cordell wrote:
> On 07/03/2022 14:20, Norman Gray wrote:
>> [...] only two characters which shift to 'markup' (TeX, which is
>> doing the same thing in a way, has 16 different categories of
>> character).

And probably many more users in the document markup field than XML, and 
while I get many complaints about LaTeX, the plethora of markup 
characters isn't a FAQ :-)

>> The following 'markup declaration' could be 'DOCTYPE' or 
>> '[CDATA[' (and a couple more). 

Quite a lot more.

> - "<" means escape from text flow
> 
> - If "<" is followed by a "!" it is a standard defined "meta" data item 
> / directive.

A Declaration which can only occur in a DTD (except for a comment or a 
CDATA Marked Section).

> (It does make me wonder why the CDATA section 'directive' wasn't just 
> <!CDATA[...]>.  Even more curious, given all the SGML things that got 
> dropped, is how it got included in XML.  It creates just as many 
> problems as it solves.)

If you write tech doc about markup it is the one marked section that is 
essential. While it is possible to include chunks of examples done with 
&lt; it's error-prone and tedious. A CDATA Marked Section allows you to 
drop in a chunk of markup and know that it won't be parsed despite the 
occurrence of < and & characters. I'm not aware of any problems.

Peter

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