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Re: Why XML?

• To: <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: Why XML?
• From: "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@a...>
• Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 12:36:40 +1000
• References: <OF1AE715F3.D4D85349-ONCA256D28.0001D5B4@f...> <16068.17304.410851.697539@m...>

From: "David Megginson" <david@m...>

>  > W3C has violated a first-order principle of language design; that
>  > there should only be one way of doing something, such that everyone
>  > ought to devise the 'same' program to solve the 'same' problem.

> It's clearly a principle rarely put into practice (

Its clearly a completely bogus principle!  In fact, for markup languages
the reverse is true: having more forms makes data capture and modeling 
easier because you can choose the form that requires the least work. 
E.g. (<![CDATA[ ]]> or  &amp; ) and (element or attribute) and
(<x></x> or <x/>) and ( y="z" or y='z'). 

The other bogus principle is that there should only be one syntax for everything.
Looking at the triumph of the C family over the LISP family, it is more
likely that people prefer a variety of embedded syntaxes which serve to indicate 
semantics or role graphically. 

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe

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