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Re: Separating content from presentation

  • From: jwells123 <jwells123@e...>
  • To: xml-dev@l...
  • Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 17:51:05 -0700

xml verbosity
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that human-readability isn't useful, just that it's more useful to developers than to business-level end-users (who shouldn't have to be reading it at all). Yet I've seen Internet consulting firms, trying to show potential clients how they can take advantage of XML, demonstrating sample applications that expose the XML to the business-level end-user, just because readability has been key to XML's rapid acceptance. (Or, if they're demonstrating dev tools, they expose XML to the end-user - the developer - at times when it isn't really necessary). Maybe it's just me, though.
 
Also, has anyone here found the extra reading/writing time inherent in XML's verbosity (as compared to other protocols) to be a problem, as some claim? I can see why you wouldn't send XML over an EDI VAN, for instance. But otherwise I would think that the processing to be done on the data itself, especially if user interaction is involved, would greatly outweigh the extra time needed to read/write the data in XML form. Has anyone actually encountered a situation where XML's verbosity became a hindrance?
 
Thanks for any and all input!
Umm... human readability is useful.  It takes some practice,
but even when an IDE is more productive, occasionally you
have to open the file and poke and peek.  Note that even
with all of the Visual apps, you still need to edit code.  True
for C, Basic, Java etc and just as true for XML.

Len
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h

-----Original Message-----
From: jwells123 [mailto:jwells123@e...]

Sorry if this is an old, dead horse on this list, but does anyone see any substance in the supposed "separation of content from presentation" feature of XML?
 
Since we had this years ago with databases and server-side scripts, I'm thinking this (and certain other misconceptions) are just attempts to create visual, easily demonstrable features for what is an inherently non-visual technology. Since XML no doubt owes some of its hype to its (distant) relation to HTML, which is visual, people wanted to be shown features of XML that they could "see."
 
In the same vein, has anyone else noticed lots of demonstrations of XML-using applications that make a point of exposing the XML itself, as if its readability were an asset to the end user? Since XML works in the background, it's hard to demonstrate its effects on the application from the user's point of view.
 
I'm thinking that being able to explain the root causes of these misconceptions will help me in explaining to people why they ARE misconceptions.
 
Thanks!
 

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