David Carver wrote:
> Michael, I would have to disagree with this. EDI had/has cryptic
> characters and if you are an end user trying to figure out why a message
> isn't coming in as you expect, unless you know the spec inside and out
> for the message being sent, it is very time consuming trying to debug
> what is wrong. The same thing hold's true for XML files and elements and
> attribute names. A human eventually has to look at it at some point
> during the development process. Even programmers, and I know many that
> prefer something they can read and decipher, as opposed to the other
> formats that require more intiment knowledge of the spec (i.e.
> <2A3></2A3> what does that actually mean?? as opposed to
> <PurchaseOrderID></PurchaseOrderID>).
I absolutely agree, but Michael's point may be that when dealing with
XML names we don't require absolute fidelity. It's OK to use an
underscore instead of a space or a apostrophe, and make various other
changes as long as the intent is still reasonably clear. In markup
and/or code no one gets too bent out of shape if they see resume where
one would expect resumé. They're just happy it's not rsm or, worse yet,
2A3. :-)
--
Elliotte Rusty Harold
Java I/O 2nd Edition Just Published!
http://www.cafeaulait.org/books/javaio2/
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596527500/ref=nosim/cafeaulaitA/
