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Re: Announce: XML Schema, The W3C's Object-Oriented Des

• To: clbullar@i... ("Bullard, Claude L (Len)")
• Subject: Re: Announce: XML Schema, The W3C's Object-Oriented Des
• From: John Cowan <jcowan@r...>
• Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 11:50:12 -0400 (EDT)
• Cc: vdv@d... ('Eric van der Vlist'), xml-dev@l... ('xml-dev')
• In-reply-to: <2C61CCE8A870D211A523080009B94E430752B5D5@HQ5> from "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" at Jun 25, 2002 10:38:38 AM

"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" scripsit:
> 
> As Clark's message is being passed along working 
> groups like a grassfire, the assertions that XML Schema is 
> hard, incomplete, inadequate, somehow not right, are being 
> accepted uncritically in many venues based on the source.

I don't know that "uncritically" is le mot juste.  The source
after all is a well-known expert in the field; the argument from
authority is only a fallacy when the authority is outside his area
of expertise.

Josiah Willard Gibbs, the greatest of 19th-century American physicists
and well-known for his extreme modesty, once testified as an expert witness.
On cross-examination, he was asked by what right he made such statements.
His reply was that he was the greatest living authority on the subject.

Afterwards, his friends asked him how he had come to say something so
out of character.  "I had to," he said.  "I was under oath."

> If all one has is 
> perceived signal strength to choose a station, the 
> media becomes the message and that is superstition.  

Granted, but this is not just about signal strength: witnesses, as
Blackstone tells us, are to be weighed and not counted.  James Clark's
opinion is weighty.

John Cowan's Law of James Clark: when you think he is wrong about some
matter of fact, check again!

-- 
John Cowan <jcowan@r...>     http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen,    http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith.  --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_

• References:
  • RE: Announce: XML Schema, The W3C's Object-Oriented Descriptions for XML
    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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