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I do encounter developers that don't get that. We saw it over and over and over again on the X3D list. I see it here at Intergraph as OOPMen go looking for OOPies. Over and over, they repeat the mantra: "SHOW ME THE CODE!!!" They look for what they expect and they expect what they already know. XML is Not Self Describing. So we describe it, they whine a bit, but if we give them code to copy, they move on. HTML led them to believe one could type it in, open the browser, and magic would happen. XML makes them aware of the man behind the curtains. I think the issue is: if we stop selling like Bart, they can stop feeling like Homer. len From: Leigh Dodds [mailto:ldodds@i...] > From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:clbullar@i...] > I can't wait to see the XML.COM condensed > version of this thread. :-) And me, because hopefully then I can read it and understand what the real issue is. (...pauses...) D'oh! Seriously though, I gave a talk recently, introducing Markup and XML to some Medical Informatics students. I outlined the overheads of writing custom parsers for custom formats; suggested that providing additional rules to structure data formats could improve the situation; then explained why CSV is fragile and limited; and then introduced labelled formats as the best solution. I also made it clear that introducing grammatical rules such as labelling doesn't necessarily say anything about the meaning of the data following those rules (cf: Edward Lear). That's for a higher layer. They seemed to accept the benefits of this, and understood where the limitations were. So aside from the philosophy (interesting as it is) it seems to me there's a fairly simple message to get across. Is there any real evidence that there's been a failure to communicate it, beyond the existing marketing-technology disconnects? Personally I'm not sure I've seen it. Most developers I've worked with just approach XML as syntax, and don't expect a whole lot more.
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