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RE: How many XML gurus does it take to change a light bulb?

• From: "Anderson, John" <John@B...>
• To: 'Sean McGrath' <sean.mcgrath@p...>, xml-dev@l...
• Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 14:54:24 +0200

Nice comparison. Recently I heard an XML guru from MS (I know, invitation for flaming) use the interoperability of light bulbs as an analogy for why XML is good. He obviously wasn't a lightbulb guru.

Have you ever tried to use an American lightbulb in Europe? Or an Australian lightbulb in a Dutch light socket? For that matter, even the Dutch have two different sizes.

The problem set is not new . . .

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean McGrath [mailto:sean.mcgrath@p...]
Sent: 07 July 2001 18:09
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: How many XML gurus does it take to change a light bulb?

Q. How many XML gurus does it take to change a light bulb?

A. Eight:

1 to create a syntax for expressing light bulbs

2 to create broadly similar yet different APIs for interacting with light bulbs

1 to argue that the API differences can be resolved by splitting the
universe of light bulb applications into
physical-model and logical-model camps.

1 to argue that no single, cohesive model is possible.

1 to disagree and invent yet another "gee! all light bulbs can be though of
it terms of nodes and arcs" model.

1 to question the sanity of all this and just get stuff working by hacking
simple lightbulb instances
into relational databases and processing them with Perl.

1 to write the meta-light-bulb joke about it and post it on xml-dev

Sean

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