Opinion: importance of preserving XML markup and nodes

Title: Message

Hello all,

 

I have an opinion to share regarding the representation of inline 
elements. This opinion is relevant to the discussion between the XLIFF TC and 
our TMX partners in our exploration of moving toward a common markup 
strategy.

 

I took a better look at the proposed TMX 2.0 
specification (http://www.lisa.org/fileadmin/standards/tmx2_2009_03_09.pdf), 
and I'd like to comment on section 4.2 (Representing Inline Elements). 

 

I strongly believe that when representing XML, it 
is important (critical) that the XML is preserved as XML, and that nodes are 
preserved as nodes.  It is my opinion that XLIFF and TMX elements need to 
be able to be processed by XML means (i.e., XSLT) natively and directly as 
XML.

 

My difficulty begins in the second paragraph of 4.1 
(Overview):

 

"At present, the best way to deal with these native 
codes in general is to delimit them by a specific set of elements that convey 
where they begin and end, and possibly additional information about what they 
are (bold, italic, footnote, etc.). (Note, however, that in some cases inline 
content markup may be left unencapsulated to meet specific needs. Guidance about 
how best to represent markup for specific needs and cases is beyond the scope of 
this standard.)"

 

This strikes me as being to accommodating to 
non-XML-aware TM tools, at the expense of enabling reasonable XML processing by 
XML-aware tools. 

 

So when I read section 4.2, it seemed to me that 
the spec is saying there are basically two ways of representing inline elements 
in TMX (I know there three variations in 4.2.1, and four variations in 4.2.2 - 
but I think they boil down to the two following instructions):

 

If this is my source

 

<p>
  <b>XML</b> is a 
general-purpose  <i>specification</i>
  for creating 
custom markup languages.
</p>

 

It seems to me the new TMX standard prescribes only 
the following two recommendations:

 

<seg>
  <itag pos="start" x="1" 
type="b">&lt;b></itag>XML
  <itag pos="end" x="1" 
/>&lt;/b></itag> is a general-purpose  
  <itag 
pos="start" x="2" type="i">&lt;i>specification
  <itag 
pos="end" x="2" />&lt;/i></itag>
  for creating custom 
markup languages.
</seg>

 

<seg>
  <itag pos="start" 
x="1" type="b" />XML
  <itag pos="end" x="1" /> is a 
general-purpose  
  <itag pos="start" x="2" 
type="i">specification
  <itag pos="end" x="2" />
  for 
creating custom markup languages.
</seg>

 

I really think each of them is bad.

 

I think the following is a much better way (and, at 
least on the XLIFF side, I will advocate strongly for this):

 

<seg>
  <itag type="b" 
x="1">XML</itag> is a general-purpose  
  <itag 
type="i" x="1">specification</itag>
  for creating custom 
markup languages.
</seg>

 

Let me be clear.  My point is strictly 
about preserving nodes here.  It is not related to my other favorite 
topics, like my dislike for escaping XML (&lt;p&gt;), or my dislike for 
shaping a standard to inordinately accommodate tools that create malformed 
XML. I'd be happy to talk about those topics, but 
not as part of this thread.

 

Maybe I'm the only one who feels so strongly 
about preserving XML nodes. Let's see what others 
think.

 

Thanks,

 

Bryan