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Re: Formalism and complexity

• To: XML Developers List <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: Formalism and complexity
• From: Ian Graham <igraham@i...>
• Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 23:04:45 -0500 (EST)
• In-reply-to: <r02000200-1028-458A4E623FFB11D8B1470003937A08C2@[192.168.124.11]>
• References: <r02000200-1028-458A4E623FFB11D8B1470003937A08C2@[192.168.124.11]>
• Reply-to: Ian Graham <ian.graham@u...>

On Mon, 5 Jan 2004, Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> igraham@i... (Ian Graham) writes:
...
> >No one wants to have they app crash for lack of handling some obscure
> >content model -- and I've certainly seen that happen a lot on the
> >project I'm working on.
>
> Then write the apps so they don't crash when fed something they don't
> understand.  Responding with "I don't understand this" is a good first
> step.
>
> >We need to make sure people use the 'right' approaches for processing
> >xml, so this doesn't happen. Unfortunately this is a different mindset
> >for designers and developers ...
>
> What would this "right" approach be?  The semantic straitjacket?

Of course not (this is getting silly). I'm merely pointing out that
getting developers to do things 'right' means teaching them to think about
their interfaces (namely xml) in new, different ways.  That's hard to do,
particularly when many of the tools (like much of the web services stuff
we're working with) don't support anything but the straitjacket. [last
sentence may be tainted by recent experience :-( ]

Which is way off topic from complexity and formalism (at least as I
interpreted it), but is interesting nevertheless.

Ian

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Formalism and complexity
    • From: Rick Marshall <rjm@z...>
  • Re: Formalism and complexity
    • From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>

• References:
  • Re: Formalism and complexity
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>

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