[xsl] Understanding why <tag></tag> is the way it is (was Re: [xsl] IE Client side transformation issue)

["M. David Peterson" <m.david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:14:32 -0600, Abel Braaksma <abel.online@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

> About the spec thing, isn't it something from SGML heritage? I mean,
> didn't XML introduce the shortcut <br /> for <br></br> thus disallowing
> the SGML <br> on itself (without closing tag)? And wasn't it also SGML
> heritage that allowed <option selected> and XML forced more strict rules
> and made it <option selected="selected">?

Oh, that's definitely a question for Tommie or someone else with similar
SGML background like G. Ken Holman, Dr. Kay, or David Carlisle.

Any of you folks care to clue the rest of us in?

> And we're still struggling to get rid of our past

Truer words have never been spoken ;-) :D

NOTE: While this may seem off-topic for XSL-List, I would argue that based
on the various problems associated with the rendering of HTML via an XSLT
transform and <tag></tag> and <tag/> this is really and important topic
closely related to XSLT from several different perspectives.

--
/M:D

M. David Peterson
http://mdavid.name | http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2354 |
http://dev.aol.com/blog/3155