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RE: Re: maps

• To: "'Simon St.Laurent'" <simonstl@s...>, <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Re: maps
• From: "Didier PH Martin" <martind@n...>
• Date: Mon, 5 Aug 2002 11:35:17 -0400
• Importance: Normal
• In-reply-to: <4.2.0.58.20020805080219.02331a70@p...>

Hi Simon

Simon said:
No, that's not an acceptable answer.  Part of the reason for using XML
at 
all is the possibility and even probability that humans will be playing 

with these files directly and/or writing software, and preserving the 
idioms they use is critical.

Reductionism may be wonderful for computers, but it's not very useful
for 
the rest of us. At least in theory, XML is supposed to provide a middle 
ground between human and machine-readable.

Didier replies:
I guess the point you are making here is to show how primitive is the
current state of XML when an XML document is interfaced with a program.
It seems that the actual trade off is:
a) the XML document is highly readable and the program processing it is
a mess with a lot of noise and not too readable also (at least, not as
readable as the XML document is).
b) the program is readable and reflect the problem's solution with
little or no noise but the XML document is a mess.

Yep guys... we need more work on this side. Simon you just proved how
primitive our current tools are. So, how can we get simultaneously:
a) readable XML documents
b) readable programs

Is it possible or are our computers too dummy? And therefore we are
maybbe the dummies since we create their programming languages :-)
Yep... my ET will definitively not come to this planet soon. We need to
evolve a bit more :-)

Anyway, this is an interesting problem to think about. I'll go back to
on the mount and think about it (you know, I live just beside a mount
and this is my favorite place for jogging and thinking - A bit though to
climb though)

Cheers
Didier PH Martin

• References:
  • RE: Re: maps
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

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