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SGML, XML, redux

• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Wed, 02 Aug 2000 12:40:01 -0400

At 11:00 AM 8/2/00 -0500, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>First, why does Simon consider these a red herring 
>when there is a body of experience that after years 
>of wrestling with the problems of complete and rigorous 
>definitions of markup languages that suggests the opposite 
>conclusion?
>
>Second, if it is just the politics and reputations 
>of the W3C versus ISO, tell them both to screw off 
>and get what you need done.  Tell me we are past 
>the insanity of that period of hero worship and 
>mindless obedience to MIT or San Jose. 
>
>Third, if the groves really are too hard, then do 
>with them what was done with XML, make that subset 
>a high priority and get the folks who wrote the 
>originals to help you do it.

And at 11:08 AM 8/2/00 -0500, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>Please remind me, why did XLink get written, rather than adopting HyTime?

I'd like to suggest you try a piece I wrote back in 1998:
http://www.simonstl.com/articles/lettinggo.htm

I'd like to suggest that XML is very much an effort to throw off 'years of
wrestling with the problems of complete and rigorous definitions of markup
languages' and that reinvention of the wheel with what Paul Prescod termed
the 'simplicity vector' is necessary as part of that project.

It may not make the original inventors happy, and it's a lot of work, but
"Build one, or two, or three" to throw away is hardly unusual in this
industry.  What was it Schumpeter talked about as the engine of growth?
Creative destruction?


Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

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    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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