XML by Example

Deciding what should be an element and what should be an attribute is a

hot debate in the XML community. We will revisit this topic in Chapter 10,

“Modeling for Flexibility,” but here are some guidelines:

• The main argument in favor of using attributes is that the DTD offers

more controls over the type of attributes; consequently, some people

argue that object properties should be mapped to attributes.

• The main argument for elements is that it is easier to edit and view

them in a document. XML editors and browsers in general have more

intuitive handling of elements than of attributes.

I try to be pragmatic. In most cases, I use element for “major” ...