[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

Re: bohemians, gentry

• To: Jeff Lowery <jlowery@s...>
• Subject: Re: bohemians, gentry
• From: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>
• Date: Wed, 04 Dec 2002 23:22:22 -0700
• Cc: "Xml-Dev (E-mail)" <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: Message from Jeff Lowery <jlowery@s...> of "Wed, 04 Dec 2002 13:18:19 PST." <879123D97A01D711B0F500508B4464E402773F@g...>
• Sender: Uche Ogbuji <uche.ogbuji@f...>

> > You were pointing out holes in the plot?  I certainly didn't 
> > read that.  
> 
> "These users make up the faction of XML bohemians. They are more
> concerned with the text content of XML data than they are with any class
> or type that might be associated."
> 
> I hope I'm getting this right, but you seem to see a gentry class that wants
> stongly bound types, and a bohemian class that wants loosely bound types.
> Given that definition, I'm le Boheme. 
> 
> But to me the real class struggle is between those who will make a living by
> adding complexity, and those who must struggle against it. It's not a
> meta-data issue, it's a complexity issue. And I realize I'm posting to a
> list that has many readers who are wonderful at dealing with complexity,
> making a good living off of understanding and explaining complexity, and
> wondering what the issue is. 
> 
> But no technology exists for long unless it solves problems, some complex,
> and some simple. The technological barrier to entry to solve simple problems
> should be low.  You should only pay for what you use.  That's such an old
> maxim it's become cliche.  
> 
> Anyway the presciption is easy: modularize the Recs through levels of
> indirection. However, gulping down the medicine is going to be horrible. It
> really pushes the complexity issues onto the designers and away from the
> casual user.   But eventually the complexities of compounding of x number of
> XML technologies is going to make the medicine look positively tasty. 

OK.  Nice post.  A few observations:

*  We seem to be pretty much in full agreement on these matters.

*  You seem to just see different nuance, rather than a complete disjoint with 
the characterization in my article.

*  Reducing complexity for the user, while pushing it on the designers is 
*exactly* the natural consequence of good design.  There have been many 
testaments to how clear, well reasoned and internally consistent XPath 1.0 is. 
 I understand that this was as a result of herculean effort by Clark and co.  
I do not doubt the elbow-grease of the current XPath WG.  My worry is that 
while in 1.0, so much of the effort went into making things simple for the 
users, in 2.0, the effort seems to be just loading all parties with 
unnecessary burdens.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
Tour of 4Suite - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/10/16/py-xml.html
Proper XML Output in Python - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/11/13/py-xml.html
RSS for Python - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-p
yth11.html
Debug XSLT on the fly - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-deb
ugxs.html

• References:
  • RE: bohemians, gentry
    • From: Jeff Lowery <jlowery@s...>

• Prev by Date: RE: bohemians, gentry
• Next by Date: Re: bohemians, gentry
• Previous by thread: RE: bohemians, gentry
• Next by thread: RE: bohemians, gentry
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread