On Thursday 03 February 2005 05:45 pm, you wrote:

> i know it's way too late, but here's the thing i dislike most about xml:
> overloading the < symbol.
>
> until 10 years ago this was a "less than" sign and had a partner, the
> "greater than" sign. and it was used that way for about a century and a
> half. and &lt; is for me, one of the unreadables of xml. x < y => x &lt;
> y ???????

I can see your point. I guess they chose the less and greater than
characters because they look a bit smoother on the screen and
make for a bit easier reading. There is definitely an artistic element 
in xml and those <tags> do make for easier reading than [this].

> however i do like the specific start/end tag stuff and don't want to
> lose it. 

I agree.  I've never been in favour of draining the swamp and using 
it for a parking lot.. Installing some walkways, some signs, and a
free barbeques and free parking is the way I like it.

> i chose square brackets for my own markup language - [] - which predates
> xml by about 15 years for exactly this reason.

That's what you get for being too advanced for your time.. 

wasn't that the old windows 1.x .ini format?

[Global Truths]
worlds_most_dangerous_place=michael_jacksons_ranch
iraq_is_less_dangerous=true
time_to_feel_good_again=yes

David

-- 
Computergrid : The ones with the most connections win.