Michael Kay schrieb am 07.08.2009 um 23:17:25 (+0100):
> >
> > Despite the L in XML, syntax alone does not constitute a language.
>
> Agreed.
I also agree :-)
> > It's only a language if there are words. XML doesn't define words.
>
> I think it does define words: words like "<", "</", "<!--", and
> "<!CDATA[", and sentential forms like "<"...">", "<!--"..."-->", and
> so on.
With the exception of "<!CDATA[" (which, just like the comment
delimiters, looks suspiciously DTD-ish to me), these words can't be
easily pronounced.
But even if they could, I wouldn't think of them as words. They arrange
parts of sentences, they're a structural skeleton, maybe not totally
dissimilar to punctuation.
It's a bit like "One man's data is another man's metadata", so you could
take either view, but I think "syntax" fits better than "language".
--
Michael Ludwig
