The Magpie <usenet@p...> writes:
>><transaction id="abc123">
>><item code="xyz789" quantity="3" price="29.99" account="1234567890"/>
>></transaction>
>Stefan, this is a discussion that was beaten to death during the
>development phase of XML. It was - pretty much universally - accepted
>that your position had some supporters but was bad coding. Yes, XML is

  Thanks for the report about the developement phase of XML.
  I appreciate to learn that people actually care to consider
  other possibilities. But SGML compatibility might also have
  been important.

>a bit "wordier" but its a helluva lot simpler to track errors.

  Some of those errors can not be made in the first place, otherwise.

  For example,

<alpha><beta></alpha></beta>

  . The element types in the closing tags allows us to detect the
  error of a wrong order. Without those names,

< &alpha < &beta >>

  , it is not possible to make this error at all.

  Another example,

<alpha><beta></alpha>

  , allows us to infer the type of the missing end tag as »beta«.

  Without the type,

< &alpha < &beta >

  , we do /not/ know /which/ end tag is missing, just that one
  end tag is missing, but without element types in end tags. we
  also /do not need/ to know which end tag is missing.

  And so on. (Lisp programmers are quite happy without named
  end tags.)