[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Inline markup considered harmful?
Robin Cover wrote: > > at the > level I experience the Web via HTTP/HTML, a heap of broken > links, it's massively and profoundly broken by design. That > "people use it" is quite unremarkable, Is it? I think it remarkable that we have these debates yet have never met. I find the fact that I can sit at home changing mandolin strings rather than attending a meeting in San Jose to move a spec five paragraphs further and still be reading the New York Times remarkable. However we consider the design of HTTP/HTML or any simpler email system, that fact that they work is a testimony to engineering practice. If they fall short of theoretical elegance, it's OK by me as long as I can still change these strings. :-) > Ted's judgment probably seems harsh because he measures a thing > against its potential -- not just by "nothing is proven to work > better than..." It works and it works for lots of people. Quod Erat Something. At the end of the working day, that is an accomplishment. As for inline markup being harmful, it certainly can be just as inline RTF is a PIA. OTOH, it can also work marvelously well and in a simple way. The fact is, the means and skills to parse an undifferentiated blob of text, find the whitespace, find the linefeeds and embedded carriage returns, build a thesaurus, code the logic for finding the exceptions for disambiguating semantic meaning, and so on is waaaay beyond far too many people who are responsible for gathering, classifying, and assigning linking information to text. For these folks, there are tools such as markup. It is a tool; not a cancer. > That he may himself be judged a failure as > compared (e.g.,) to Bill Gates is no doubt the common verdict. He goes beyond facts into beliefs about what is best for everyone's information resources. Many of us have statements like that somewhere in the archives. All I am saying is that calling markup a cancer is hyperbole. It is a less than ideal but better than UTF-8 way of getting certain jobs done that Ted did not do. Those that did do it did a good job. No Latin; just, thanks for the relief so I don't have to do it. Can the web work better? Sure. But we don't get to find out without applying our experience and trying out our ideas. Whatever else we do, we get to do that here. How many folks get to work on Xanadu? > In referencing his brilliance, I was speaking from a different > reference point, and different set of values, where > measurement by counting companies acquired, companies brought > to IPO, and 'successful' software products delivered (etc.) has > no currency. MS didn't invent this. They took advantage of it just like everyone, and I do mean everyone, else. So? Let 'em. Working software beats the heck out of systems that are always just one more revision from being released. See Babbage. If we are still worried about chaining up our information, well, if that virus last week didn't do anything else, it sure made me organize the paper in the file cabinet. Tedious to use, but not zero-length at the whim of someone who thought it would be a clever stunt to wipe files for some holy cause to release me from my MS chains. Jeez. That help the InfoMustBeFree Warriors can keep. > Among Ted's gifts, some would say, is an unusual > ability to damn mediocrity by identifying it and labeling it > so plainly that it hurts. Something else I hope I have learned: I can't educate by hurting that which doesn't learn from pain. It's just more pain. This is as true of Gates as it is of Ted: whatever they have, they have because they want it. Me, I am a mediocre mind; I just want to change the strings on my guitar next. If this is the cry of someone who has lost their higher aspirations, so be it. Those who listen get better sound. This isn't, worse is better; it is something for someone. len xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ and on CD-ROM/ISBN 981-02-3594-1 To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|