[xquery-talk] Text Markup vs Data Serialization - Was RE: min max and mix

[David Lee]

I do like FtanML ... In fact look forward to a possible presentation at some upcoming conference with a few key concepts borrowed/stolen ...

so how far have you gotten to get FtanML/XSLT/XPath/XQuery ?
:)

( thats the thing about XML ... even with flaws it has an unsurpassed adopted toolchain )


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Kay [mailto:mike at saxonica.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 2:12 PM
To: David Lee
Cc: ihe.onwuka at gmail.com; talk at x-query.com
Subject: Re: [xquery-talk] Text Markup vs Data Serialization - Was RE: min max and mix

 
> 
> My opinion is that the compromises made to allow this "Dual Use", while not perfect and not quite equal in each use case, are really amazing.
> I cannot think of any other markup or serialization format which does better at accommodating both use cases as equal citizens reasonably well.

XML does a good job at this but it leaves some well-known problems. I tried to do better in FtanML (Balisage 2013). For example FtanML:

* allows element and attribute values that are typed as integers, booleans, or sequences of anything without resorting to a schema

   for example married=true, height=1.86, children=["John", "Mary"]

* distinguishes whitespace that is present for readability purposes from whitespace that's part of the content

* eliminates the artificial distinction between elements and attributes, allowing the same values to be held in both

Michael Kay
Saxonica