[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: abstraction
From: <rev-bob@g...> Subject: re: abstraction <snip> > Abstraction is a tool. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself - no more than a chainsaw > is. However, with any tool, its potential to be Really Good is matched by potential to be > Really Bad, and the more powerful it is, the greater *BOTH* of those potentials are. > This is what I'm talking about by "danger" in this context; if we give XML (a really > powerful structure) a really high level of abstraction (putting that power in the hands of > the masses), we will have something really powerful. This is not necessarily a good > thing, and that's all I'm really trying to say. (A nuclear bomb is really powerful, but tell > the people affected by one that its power is beneficial.) > </snip> Abstraction is a NECESSARY thing. How often do you deal with sockets and packets, for example? No, we usually want to deal with HTTP and XML and XSL and browsers, which are big-time abstractions of their own. And then sockets are a big abstraction. As are objects, functions, etc. Even a GIF image is a big abstraction, not to mention file systems. Abstractions cause undue trouble when too many layers get piled up too "quickly", and especially when the abstraction is not a good match for what's being abstracted. For myself, I build some Powerbuilder applications. When I create a window, I get a standard window that I can drag controls into, with a huge amount of machinery already built in. 99% of the time, that's exactly what I want. It's a great abstraction, because it's easy to get something that fits my mental model. And it's tons easier and more productive than using MFC, for example, or the Windows API. But when I write HTML, I generally do it by hand - usually using Cold Fusion Studio but often with a plain editor. I'd rather not have to, but I haven't found tools that match my mental models well enough so far, or I still have to do too many of the details. But give me a graphical color palette every time - there's a useful abstraction. A high level of abstraction is what makes a lot of this technology accessible to many of us. Even sending this email. I'm going to click on the Send button to "send" it - now there's a great abstraction! Tom Passin 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...)
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