[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: ATTN: Please comment on XHTML (before it's too late)
David Megginson wrote: > You and I, Paul have seen too many worthy specs fail completely > because of superfluous complexity -- HyTime, Topic Maps, and DSSSL > (and Architectural Forms) spring immediately to mind, but they hardly > stand alone. This is pure flame bait and has no place in this discussion. In what sense have architectures or HyTime failed? In what sense have they failed completely? David is *at this moment* working on project in which HyTime and architctures are being used to good effect. I use HyTime and architectures in everything I do. TechnoTeacher has developed a robust commercial system that implements HyTime and architectures (GroveMinder). Have these uses achieved the same breadth of acceptance that something like HTML has? No. Does that mean they are failures? No. Success and failure must be measured against suitability for requirements, not number of documents or number of users or number of seats. By that measure, all these standards are successful to one degree or another. They all meet their stated requirements, they have all been successfully implemented and used to solve real business problems. So have HTML and XML and, for that matter, name spaces. Would I like to see HyTime used more widely? Yes. Do I think it will take at least as long as other similarly complex and powerful systems took to get wide acceptance (about 10 years)? Yes. Am I worried about it not happening? No. While I certainly agree with David that *unnecessary* complexity should be avoided, it is a gross oversimplication to suggest that complex standards are failures simply because they are complex. HyTime is not complex for the sake of simplicity, it is complex because it solves complex problems. Will everyone need all that complexity? No. But when you do, there's a solution there. So no more talk about "failed" standards. I'm happy to talk about *shortcomings* of any of these standards--I'm probably as painfully aware of them as anybody. But having flaws is not the same as having failed. By this logic, the Space Shuttle would be a failure because there are only four of them while there are thousands of commercial jets and tens of thousands of much simpler small airplanes. Cheers, E. 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...)
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