Dmitrij D. Czarkoff wrote: > Eckehard Berns said: > > You only write a parser once. But you write some magnitude more markup > > that is going to be parsed by it. So optimizing the markup specification > > for authoring has a better net gain than to optimize the protocol just to > > get away with a simpler parser. > > Actually, if parser behavior is simple and easily predictable, the task > of writing markup is easier. When I write correct HTML, I still have to > open browser to see how it renders, because I have no way to predict the > actual result (apart from my experience with different generally > unexpected results that serve me the basis for educated guess).
Fair point. For me HTML usually renders as I expected. But that's because I do this for over a decade, I guess. If it doesn't it usually is because of a misunderstanding in semantics (e.g. the broken block-model in IE until 7) and using XML wouldn't change that. > This alone is sufficient for me to be all for simplistic strict parser > with zero fault tollerance. I think it comes down to what is actually easier for the person writing the markup. For me it's HTML for others it might be XML. Hadn't thought of that. -- Eckehard Berns