Re: Indentation contest nxml vs xml-mode

["Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>]

Drew Adams wrote:
>> ***** xml-mode
>> <outermost>
>>    <inner1><inner2>
>>        <inner3>Duh</inner3>
>>      </inner2>
>>    </inner1>
>> </outermost>
>>
>> ***** nxml-mode
>> <outermost>
>>    <inner1><inner2>
>>      <inner3>Duh</inner3>
>>    </inner2>
>>    </inner1>
>> </outermost>
> 
> IMO, neither is great (both are ugly and confusing). I've never seen XML
> indented like either of those (except when it wasn't formatted at all).
> FWIW, I use this:
> 
> <outermost>
>   <inner1><inner2>
>             <inner3>Duh</inner3>
>           </inner2>
>   </inner1>
> </outermost>
> 
> IOW: 1. Align opening and closing tags. 2. Indent just enough so that nested
> tags start after the </ of their parent.
> 
> Why? Because (1) you need to be able to easily find corresponding tags and
> (2) XML is verbose, so the less indentation the better. You could indent
> only one space, but I think it's more readable with two.
> 
> Another possibility is what we (most of us) use in Lisp - avoid starting
> lines with closing tags:
> 
> <outermost>
>   <inner1><inner2>
>             <inner3>Duh</inner3></inner2></inner1>
>   <inner1>some more</inner1></outermost>

Both your suggestions looks good IMO.

> That can also work well in some contexts.
> 
> I present lots of XML in doc everyday. I haven't found anything more
> readable than just indenting two spaces and aligning the corresponding
> element tags. I also align attributes. But I never, ever introduce or change
> significant whitespace, such as that within a text() node, if I can avoid
> it. For example, I never indent the text here:
> 
>        <foo>some text that is too
> long for a printed line</foo>
> 
> That should never be changed by automatic indentation to, say, this:
> 
>        <foo>some text that is too
>        long for a printed line</foo>
> 
> or this:
> 
>        <foo>some text that is too
>             long for a printed line
>        </foo>


Though as Jason (I believe) pointed out when we discussed it last time 
whitespace is not significant (most of the time ...) in XHTML, only in 
XML. But it is sometimes -- and those times are really hard to detect 
since they might depend on the style sheet, or?