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In Defense of the Lowly Angle Bracket

Deborah A. Lapeyre

<Markup-UK-Closing> [slide 1]
My not-so-subtle bias for this talk [slide 2]
What’s wrong with angle brackets? [slide 3]
Angle brackets in XML have a very bad reputation [slide 4]

He is not alone [slide 5]
He is really not alone [slide 6]
So let’s change the angle brackets! [slide 7]

SGML could change basic delimiters [slide 8]
Here is an ordinary XML document [slide 9]
An Example (after IBM, with apologies) [slide 10]
For those who like curly braces better [slide 11]
My personal preference: ¢tag¢ [slide 12]
Don’t angle brackets start to look really good? [slide 13]

Maybe Angle brackets are a red herring [slide 14]

XML too bloated, too end-tag heavy [slide 15]
XML bloats the world and annoys users (ArnorH) [slide 16]
XML is grotesque [slide 17]
OK, we can get rid of end tags [slide 18]
SHORTTAG YES enabled [slide 19]
More SHORTTAG Tricks [slide 20]
NETC (Null End Tag) [slide 21]
SGML DTDS allowed tag minimizations with OMITTAG [slide 22]
SGML had more minimizations [slide 23]
BIG problem with all these “omitted” tags [slide 24]
SGML could change delimiters [slide 25]

Maybe End Tags are a red herring [slide 26]

Norm Walsh said in Defending the Tax [slide 27]
Assignment versus containment/enclosure [slide 28]
Lapeyre: I don’t want assignment; I want containment [slide 29]

Next Canard: Angle Brackets are not readable [slide 30]

Repeat: XML is not readable [slide 31]
Really: XML is not readable [slide 32]
Let’s look at the claims [slide 33]
CSV files are easier to read than angle brackets [slide 34]

In whose universe? [slide 35]
[slide 36]
Besides... [slide 37]
Reading versus comprehending [slide 38]
Wait: Just dump CVS into an Excel Spreadsheet [slide 39]
There exist multiple XML-to-CSV converters [slide 40]

YAML is easier to read than angle brackets [slide 41]

Indentation Matters in YAML [slide 42]
Some lovely readable YAML [slide 43]
YAML is so readable [slide 44]

JSON is easier to read than angle brackets [slide 45]

JSON syntax versus XML [slide 46]
JSON scanability illustrated (lost in the spacing) [slide 47]
JSON readability illustrated [slide 48]
JSON [slide 49]

Relatively speaking, XML is very readable [slide 50]

Why are angle brackets more readable? [slide 51]
Readable versus Legible [slide 52]
XML is discoverable [slide 53]
Don’t those angle brackets start to look good? [slide 54]

Readability of angle brackets is an Accessibility issue [slide 55]

Readability: Is the first See Also inside the Glossdef or not? [slide 56]
The same as XML [slide 57]
Readability is in the eye of the beholder! [slide 58]
Markdown is easier to read than XML [slide 59]
More readable Markdown [slide 60]
JATDown: A MarkDown Language for JATS [slide 61]
Why angle brackets rock [slide 62]
David Megginson in All markup ends up looking like XML [slide 63]
David asks “Which of these is easier to read?” [slide 64]
Don’t save me keystrokes; Save me thinking time! [slide 65]
From an Accessibility viewpoint [slide 66]
[slide 67]
This one’s for me! [slide 68]
Even the experts get Accessibility/Readability wrong [slide 69]

But, in the last analysis [slide 70]
Information is more important than syntax [slide 71]

Steven Pemberton in Invisible XML [slide 72]
Syntax is of minimal importance [slide 73]
At the end of the day, syntax does not really matter [slide 74]
Good. If we agree... [slide 75]
</Markup-UK-Closing> [slide 76]

Unrelated good quotes I found in my research [slide 77]

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