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Re: XLink and mixed vocabulary design

• To: XML Developer List <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: Re: XLink and mixed vocabulary design
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2004 11:42:09 -0500
• In-reply-to: <40114D61.7010109@e...>

robin.berjon@e... (Robin Berjon) writes:
>>>I've used generic XLinks to find out about dependencies between XML 
>>>documents in a variety of arbitrary vocabularies, and I've found it 
>>>useful. I'm not in love with XLink itself, but I'd rather have it
than 
>>>nothing.
>> 
>> This feels like an argument from laziness, and I have a hard time
>> respecting it.  I think analyzing documents should mean learning the
>> vocabularies they use and how they use them.
>
>All I need is knowledge that there are relationships between
>resources. Why should I have to teach my code about various different
>constructs in two dozen vocabularies? I don't see what's not to
>respect in laziness.

I respect laziness when it produces quicker ways to get to the same
result, like the classic laziness of working on a tool that automates a
particularly annoying task with well-understood data.

I don't respect laziness when it reflects a lack of interest in the data
being processed.  You don't care about what you're looking at here.  To
me, and especially in the already complex context of linking, that
sounds like the kind of laziness that leads to wrong answers and lousy
tech.

If you can't be bothered, don't.

• References:
  • Re: XLink and mixed vocabulary design
    • From: Robin Berjon <robin.berjon@e...>

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