[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Do SGML and XML co-exist?
Paul Prescod wrote: Let me say, I never invented anything that has to do with SGML and markup systems. I am and was a user of such systems, just a musician who had this strange notion that timing and synchronization were key to the problems of enterprise engineering. That's all. I am an older user than most of you and because of that, I was a minor observer of some of the history and people who did invent markup. It was a privilege and an honor. It was at times, thrilling. > I don't believe that. There was a requirement for an e-commerce and data > interchange meta-language. We were there first. Interestingly, it had been brought up before XML was gleam. Every time someone suggested to the EDI committees that markup was preferable, it was dimissed as an irrelevant text format. When I was at the PDES meetings when SGML was first considered, it was only as a string alternative to the somewhat byzantine document model they were building. No, Paul, two things made the EDI folks take it seriously: MS was backing it and it was going On The Web. If I can find Rita Knox, we can probably still get an authoritative, deeply technical, and completely irrelevant analysis of why markup is a bad idea. If Betty Harvey remembers, at one point, HTML was all that mattered. If I am honest, I thought Hytime would change the world. We all have those moments. > The client side (if it > ever materializes) will be gravy. Microsoft probably accelerated the > process but there was a desperate market need for a faster way to > describe data interchange languages than BNF and SGML really should have > been there several years ago but for the stigma and the DTD dependency > issue. The stigma is the interesting issue. We already knew how to work with well-formed files and without DTDs. We struggled against the SGMLWay, the consultancies, and the fact that before HTML blew away all other competitors, we could not get a hearing. Why? Politics and money. I had the good fortune in Orlando to watch Dr. Goldfarb take on Larry Welch from NIST. It was incredible to see this balding bearded Jewish lawyer with cowboy boots and a string tie taking notes on that long yellow legal pad, drop his glasses to the end of his nose, then devastate Welch. Welch hateed SGML. He used his considerable girth and position to fight it at every turn. That was what SGML was up against: committees, power brokers in Washington and elsewhere, people with petty empires and overarching ambitions. Most of you on this list probably don't have the real picture of what you owe Goldfarb. Considerably more than a beer, but if you meet him, consider yourself lucky and buy him one if Linda isn't looking. He built this language, folks. Some of you are getting credit and pocket change, but he made this happen. Not Jon, not Tim, not TimBL. I respect those guys, but Goldfarb paid for this party. Respect is owed; respect is due. So why did some of us go with the SGML On The Web project: 1. It was the right thing to do. HTML is an SGML application. I had to defend it in DC against every comer. Even when I knew there were better designs, it was evolving fast and at a certain point, it met the requirements, so Selah. Shake hands and move on. I stood in front of the assembled IETM cognoscenti of Lockheed Martin in Orlando and told them, yes, we spent a lot of money, we've done a lot of good work. Consider it training. Now, get with the program. The Web wins. It hurt, but it was the right thing to do. As a professional, one will have those moments. 2. We needed a means to focus the SGML community. The long time waiting for DSSSL to be completed (the real tent pole), the suffering with FOSI based systems so complicated we could never get them in high producion, the mysterious, inscrutable and ultimately overbuilt HyTime standard, all of this had gone on too long. Without the web and the money, there was no way the excellent conceptual foundations of SGML would have survived. 3. It wasn't money, at least, not for me. Haven't made a dime on it. Probably won't. I've invested a lot of time in VRML and the fruits of that are just emerging not as money, but in that next year, there will be a markup version of animtated 3D. I helped make that happen. Why? It is the right thing to do. Wall-to-wall markup systems have the potential to make the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of complex information come down. Real time 3D is a very key piece and we have known that since at least the eighties. To happen we had to get off expensive platforms. Today we have 50 cent memory and two dollar processors. Time for Phase II. It takes a long time to do some kinds of work. You will meet a lot of people, eat a lot of bad food, and stay in some nasty rooms. You will have a lot of laughs, some mindbending arguments, shed a few tears, and only win some of the games. You will give up some things you hold dear, risk friends, alienate allies, even walk away when you are the impediment, not the solution. Ask yourself why and be honest about it. Money only goes so far. It ls what it has always been: we have to protect information, as Charles said, "from folks like us". Why? The humans matter more than the machines. They need information, and for that, information must be free of implementation. It isn't content vs presentation. That is an old red herring. It is content independent of implementation. The reason some us understand DTDs. SGML and XML aren't inevitabilities. They never were. They are there because two and now three generations of information pros and users fought for them. There Ain't No Justice Unless You Make It So. We aren't martyrs; we are pros. We take pride in it. It is, as Lawrence told the Sheik, "our pleasure" to do it. We do it for people. But as Megginson notes, without the money, it isn't comfortable and with the money, it is a lot more exciting if a lot more crowded. I just won't sit here and let history be rewritten by newbies and those with a platinum axe to grind. I accept XML. How many of you on the list accept that XML is SGML, and because of it, has a proud and well respected heritage made by people whose names are fading faster than the sun over the Pacific? Respect is owed; respect is due. > Admittedly, had Microsoft come out with an XML *competitor*, XML might > have been in trouble. But if they sat on their hands, we would still > need to solve the Internet e-commerce issues with or without them and I > don't see any other proposals for data interchange meta- and schema- > languages. Common LISP comes to mind. S-expressions, as Dan Connoly told me, are the highest form. Why not LISP? Well, because HTML wasn't written in LISP. As the twig is bent, so grows the tree. 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 unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; unsubscribe 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
|