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Re: limits of the generic

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: limits of the generic
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2002 12:37:27 -0400
• In-reply-to: <87it0nzblt.fsf@n...>

Norm Walsh writes:
> In any event, I think it's quite a leap from "the TAG thinks HTML
> should use XLink" to "the whole world must use XLink (or some other
> technology)"

I'm sorry, but I don't see the distinction, except that XHTML operates
under W3C auspices and is therefore more easily ordered about.  The W3C
continuously and unapologetically keeps turning out "XML-whatever"
specifications, promoting this notion of the W3C as keeper of a coherent
"XML family" of specs, and getting rather snippy whenever their
technical judgment or political wisdom is challenged.

(Given how lousy a fit XLink is to what the XHTML WG seems to be trying
to accomplish, the generic-trumps-specific message seems remarkably
plain.)

It's time to get over the notion that a committee of experts can solve
semantic problems for a wide range of problems.  It was very nice of the
W3C to provide a home for the simplification of SGML and give us a
useful syntax, but the results since then have been hideous - and in
large part because the world takes the W3C's pretensions seriously.


-------------
Simon St.Laurent - SSL is my TLA
http://simonstl.com may be my URI
http://monasticxml.org may be my ascetic URI
urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.6320 is another possibility altogether

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