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Re: RE: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: RE: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"
• From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>
• Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 17:52:17 -0500
• In-reply-to: <2C61CCE8A870D211A523080009B94E4306FEE9DE@HQ5>

3/15/2002 5:01:49 PM, "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...> wrote:

>If we had to invent XML from scratch, would it 
>have mattered?  If HTML had been invented from 
>scratch, would it have succeeded?

Well, I had a similar reaction the first time I read the 
presentation.  Then I turned it around: If it weren't for
HTML and XML, no one (outside of our tiny little world 
circa 1996) would argue that SGML "mattered." 

Other things on the list may not have mattered in their
original incarnation -- let's say that "4GL" didn't matter,
but they proved the concept that you don't need to be a
computer scientist to write useful programs, which led
to Visual Basic (etc.) which clearly do matter.  So, 
perhaps it makes sense think about what it took to make 
these matter ... and I for one would argue that the
80:20 rule was important in making SGML matter in the
form of HTML and XML, making 4GL matter in the form of VB,etc. 

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"
    • From: Marcus Carr <mcarr@a...>
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    • From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>
  • Re: RE: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

• References:
  • RE: Tim Bray on "Which Technologies Matter?"
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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