[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: frustration (was RE: XPath 2.0 )
This is especially for researchers, and a little bit for developers also. Yesterday I attended a talk by Prof. Scott Shenker (UC, Berkeley). His talk was more about how researchers work, and why researchers miss stuff like Napster. I was thinking more like why they miss XML. I think it is obvious that researchers had to miss them, because the idea of standardization information exchange would have definitely not occurred to them, but to me, what is more difficult to believe is how they missed the concepts of data modeling similar to XML. Prof. Shenker mentioned a point about the way researchers work: "The goal of researchers is to prove to the world that they are smart". While I think this is true for a large portion of the researchers, I believe that there are quite a significant amount of researchers, whose aim is not to prove they are smart. Then we (couple of friends and myself) discussed about developers, I am afraid that I find the same trend among developers too: "The goal of the developers is to ensure that their company's approach gets accepted as a standard". Again I believe that while this is true for a large number of developers, there are a few developers who are open to adopt and change. Again, should we blame the researchers and developers for being what they are -- I again think not. Most of the researchers and developers who try to do the "ideal" thing either do not get funding or get fired from their companies. Those who still hold on to those ideal goals, and are able to work on them are those who have been fortunate so far. So how do we go about changing the whole system?? -- that is a big question, and I think the answer almost always is that we should start making sacrifices and risks -- that is we should change ourselves, and be ready to face difficulties. I am quite sure this trend will be infectious. Anyways, I believe that was pretty heavy stuff to digest. Also, often times it is very difficult to practice what you preach also. cheers and regards - murali.
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