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On 23 May 2001 22:45:46 +0100, Al Snell wrote: > Everything depends upon standards. I am hearing people say that you don't > need standards with XML because if something not matching what your > software expects comes along, a human can figure it out. Great. We still > need mutually agreed standards, or we can't communicate. Full stop... XML > doesn't change a thing! XML doesn't change a thing, but we're not nearly at "mutually agreed standards, or we can't communicate. Full stop..." XML offers computing the opportunity to behave much more like the "real world", where communications is inexact and messy and the standardization costs are only borne if there's a real benefit to standardization. (ISO standardizes shipping container construction, not which contents are appropriate to containers.) Computers have long seen much greater benefits to standardization than the real world for very simple reasons: computing logic (and creating that logic) has cost a lot of money and time, and computers aren't naturally good at comparisons beyond if/then. We're finally reaching the point where computer processing is cheap enough to open other options. I don't see good reasons beyond tradition to keep ourselves chained to the information rules that have constrained software development so far when there's a reasonable chance at making more flexible structures work. XML standardizes a syntax for labelled nested structures holding textual content. For a lot of us, that's all the standardization that is presently appropriate. I'd like to have a chance to work on that level before we start declaring that piles more standards are necessary to get real work done.
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