[thechat] XML as read from the horse's mouth >> OH! MY! GOD!

[Elfur Logadottir]

From: "Warden, Matt" <mwarden at mattwarden.com>


| > yes I know those are capital letter - and yes I was shouting.
|
| Damn... I could hear you all the way from Ohio...

LOL

| > I intend to know more tomorrow than I do today.
|
| And you didn't just watch Jerry Springer?

ROTFL

| > page, is driving me crazy.
|
| The w3.org specs usually should be the last thing you look at, IMO.

I almost know that, which is why I start someplace else, and then head
over to W3C because otherwise I just wouldn't be able to finish
anything there (and I would become bald in the progress)

| > You want examples, I'll give you examples:
| >
| Lemme see if I can break it down for ya...

| > XML documents are made up of storage units called entities, which
| > contain either parsed or unparsed data. Parsed data is made up of
| > characters, some of which form character data, and some of which
form
| > markup.
|
| <person>
|     <name>elfur</name>
|     <mugshot>http://elfur.is/mypic.jpg</mugshot>
|     <favorite-color>neon clear</favorite-color>
| </person>
|
| the PERSON element contains both text and markup, correct?
|
| the NAME, MUGSHOT, and FAVORITE-COLOR elements contains text, no
markup

I know that, but did they have to use "storage units" and "parsed data
is made up of characters" not to mention that they feel the need to
explain that this parsed data, made up of characters, either form
character data or markup. phuleeeze couldn't they just use english.

reading through this spec reminds me of lawschool - more than is
healthy for me ...

| > 2) well-formedness what?

| that is a fatal error and this XML file can not be parsed.

yes but "formedness" yikes, even I could chose a better english word
than formedness!

| > 3) what is text?
| >
| > A parsed entity contains text, a sequence of characters, which may
| > represent markup or character data
|
| Not sure what's giving you problems here. Basically, a parsed entity
(like
| PERSON above) can contain both markup or characters/text.

I'm not having a problem understanding the page - just reading it.
common if you look closely at the sentence above it is explaining what
text is >> a sequence of characters.

| > 4) and this tops everyting >> atomic unit !!
| >
| > A character is an atomic unit of text as specified by ISO/IEC
10646
| > [ISO/IEC 10646] (see also [ISO/IEC 10646-2000]).
|
| Never heard of it refered to as this, but I think this is just
saying that a
| character is the smallest unit in a XML document.

absolutely, but why the fuck explain that to me?
who cares if a character is an atomic unit or rhetoric unit or
whatever, I know what a character is. and if they want me to look at a
character in a wider perspective than I usually, just say so. Don't
tell me that a character is an atomic unit, and please don't add how
that atomic unit is specified, let alone where!

|
| help any?

yes, but I'm just complaining about the wording, not that I don't
understand what they are so clumsy at saying.

thanks
elfur
*the whinging one*