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RE: intertwined specs

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>, xml-dev@l...
• Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 12:58:13 -0600

I agree that it consumes a lot of time to read and 
understand the specs.  I presume the implementors 
are similarly concerned.   I don't take this, however, 
as an indication that the specifications overall 
are too complex. I take it as an indication that 
the tasks being attempted with XML are as varied 
as the original specification warranted they would be.

Hard problems; heavy solutions.  I only got mad 
when the XML spec was tossed to the floor asserting 
it would be easy after that.  Anyone with experience  
knew it would only get harder and more complex.  Easier 
than SGML/HyTime?  Maybe, but you'll have to ask 
the implementors of those systems about that.  All 
I know is a lot of what I see here looks a lot like 
what I saw there.  The names were changed, the concepts 
"reified" but overall, the same stuff.  The big differences 
are well-formedness and namespaces.  Those really are 
simplifications of the original concepts.  As James 
pointed out recently, SGML conflated parsing and validation. 
Separating those has been enormously useful.

But easy? That IS how XML was sold, I agree.  Caveat emptor.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@s...]

At 12:17 PM 2/16/01 -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>I think that is so, but all evolution is not progress.  It is evolution.
>This complexity curve is inevitable.  As the tower grows taller, the
>base grows wider (if you build top down).  If you build bottom up,
>the base must be as wide as the components of the tower enable it
>to get high.   Somewhere between earth and heaven, the walls come
>tumbling down.
>
>Do you feel a rumbling?

Privately - all the time.

Publicly?  Most people ignore as much of this as they possibly can, and are 
frightened of the ever-growing volumes in the XML sections of 
bookstores.  That doesn't lead to a lot of discussion on mailing lists,
though.


Simon St.Laurent - Associate Editor, O'Reilly and Associates
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books


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