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RE: breaking up?

• From: Sean McGrath <sean.mcgrath@p...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 16:32:42 +0100

>
> > Exposing these different approaching is a useful exercise, if
> > for no other reason that illuminating the viewpoints and pre-conceptions
> > of the folk taking part in the debates.
>[Simon St. Laurent]
>Sure.  I'd love to hear from more people directly about their
>experiences with such things.


OK. Here is what I use FWIW.

My brain can only hold about 5 concepts at any one time so I use
start-tags, end-tags, attributes and data. Um, thats about it on
the data side.

For validation I use DTDs insofar as practical and custom semantic
validation for everything else. All the new fangled schema
technologies are semantic sugar that will rot your teeth if you
are not careful:-)

All cross-reference semantics are home grown so, no RDF, no XLink,
no Topic Maps no arch. forms.

For presentation I use homegrown + some XSL + some CSS +
some SVG + MIF + RTF + TeX. Whatever works - its a jungle out there

I have never - outside of using other W3C technologies - had a need
for namespaces and a thin layer of skin peels away from the soles
of my feet every time I think about them to hard.

I am one of those who believe a data model for XML should have
been part of the original spec and pin much of the blame for the
yet-another-data-model problems exhibited by DOM/XP*/XQ*/XS*
on this.

I believe XML Schemas and in particular the PSVI abstraction are
sufficiently complicated that mere mortals are justified in
asking "why?" and "do we really need this?" without being
condescended to (however unwittingly). For my money they are
way over the top any so totally unproven in the real world that
they simply should not be put forward as "standards" or
"recommendations" any time soon.

I believe the markets take on XSLT as a general purpose XML
transformation technology is a blind alley that will be the
cause of a wholesale transformation re-engineering effort
about 3 years from now.

I believe the gap between what people are doing with XML in
the real world and the stuff talked about on lists like this
is large but still growing at an alarming pace.

I believe the concept of industry standard schemas/DTDs - taken
as a gimme  by so many people - is very dubious. I know of
no industry standard schema/DTD. I know a number of schema/DTD
*patterns* that are succesful - the HTML pattern, the RSS
pattern - but no formal schemas. Nothing you can mechanically
validate.

I believe only people within 1.5 standard deviation of mean
intelligence should be allows sit on standards committees
which should standardize existing practice *only* rather than
invent stuff all over the park.

Sean

• Follow-Ups:
  • RE: breaking up?
    • From: Al Snell <alaric@a...>

• References:
  • RE: breaking up?
    • From: Leigh Dodds <ldodds@i...>
  • RE: breaking up?
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

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