[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 02:05 PM 3/2/01 -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: >Right. The point I want to make >is that XML and these languages per >se as "simplified" bits required that >long complicated bit that came before >to figure out which bits were simple, >which 20 does what 80 of the work. I hate to point this out, but you seem to have a vision of a world in which spec complexity is inescapable, recurring, and inevitable. I fear you don't give communities credit for the potential to learn from the impact of past complexities, and expect every new spec to be as hopelessly intertwingled as SGML, CALS, and HyTime - _none_ of which qualify as a worthy role model for future spec development in my book. Yes, we need experience to learn which 20% is useful. We also need to foresight to realize that piling 200% on top of the 20% we just slimmed down to is probably not going to help much. >Before we lament the complexity (We are whining!) >or really sidetrack I don't understand why you regard efforts to learn from XML's success - that doing less is doing more - as whining. Of course, I tend to regard people who insist that long lists of features be piled into what once looked simple and usable as whiners myself, so maybe I shouldn't be critical. Simon St.Laurent - Associate Editor, O'Reilly and Associates XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed. XHTML: Migrating Toward XML http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books
|
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
|