MML Confusion

[ftg.death.rhino]

Okay, so I know that an element starts with <example> and ends with </example>, and I know that an attribute is something like index or type or which or whatever, and I know that a child element starts with <example attribute="blarg"/>, but do all child elements end with </child>, or am I confusing a child element with an assignment?

What is an assignment, and how does it differ from a child element? That is the question. I've always made mistakes with my MML, mainly because of this confusion. I also made mistakes because MML has individual dialects, for instance:

<child index="bunkey" type="blarg"/>

OR

--<child
------index="bunkey"
------type="blarg"
------/>

OR

<child index="bunkey">
<type="blarg"
/>

I don't know maybe I'm looking into this too deep, but when you are sitting on your desktop, reading from the MML.HTML, hoping that there is somewhere in between the lines, some crystal clear exposition, and you don't find it, you start to go insane.