[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: is that a fork in the road?
At 08:01 AM 3/6/01 -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: [Sean McGrath] >Possibly it pays to find out why they went down >that road before you go down the other >well traveled path. > >SGML ignored semantics and didn't have a data model. Nah. SGML as used in anger by legions of developers does indeed have a data model - the stuff emitted by James Clarks nsgmls - ESIS. As the saying goes, the difference between theory and practice is smaller in theory than it is in practice. The great minds working on SGML and related standards had little time for ESIS and waxed lyrical about the benefits of a more abstract model in which ESIS would be an intellectually satisfying, mere special case, of a greater truth. Perhaps this is true but so too perhaps is superstring theory. But you don't worry about it when you are trying to build things in the real world. In summary, I'm saying three things: 1) XML "partical physics" is interesting but engineers shouldn't have to worry about it in their day jobs. 2) Unlike partical physics, with XML we get to define the basic building blocks of matter rather than have them foisted upon us by an external reality. 3) I believe WF XML would make a great fundamental compound on which to build.
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