[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: stopping XML (was RE: Relax NG Projects)
Yeah, the SGMLers experienced the same kind of "it's a NAIL!" enthusiasm and from time to time, the Elder Luddites of SGML warned that treating markup as the answer to every problem would lead to weirder problems. Yuri and Charles tried to get me to understand that once upon a time after we presented the first MID design in which we had replicated all of C++ in pointies. Yet count the number of times a year someone comes on this list with an XML-pointy programming language. It isn't as if no one has tried it; everyone tries it. Sometimes they even implement it, but as deRose asked me then, "Len, what is the advantage over just using C++?" There wasn't one past the parser, and that parser wasn't buying us much but a fat verbose programming language that no tools supported and no one needed or wanted. On the other hand, we have SVG now and believe me, using markup for graphics was once a mad heresy. So perhaps we push it to the edge, a little over the edge, identify the edge, then step back and try another path. It seems to me that the web itself is just a lab experiment writ very large, and that we take it so seriously that the notion of specing systems to see if the idea is a good one got lost in the madness of being RIGHT. Ask any celebrity about that and most of the still sane ones will tell you that popularity or any fame is an illusion of perception about access. It doesn't make one less smelly in the morning. So yeah, horses for courses. Maybe a little less ambition to be web stars... like, the scooby snacks are all gone anyway, Scooby Doo! len From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@s...] I think the XML community, myself included, gravely over-extended itself by claiming that XML was capable of solving problems in all of these spaces effectively. W3C XML Schema seems like the poster-child for what happens when that hubris is taken seriously and piles of new features to support all these areas get added. I also think it's past time for a lot of us to take a closer look at the tools we have and the work we do and ask which tools are most appropriate to which work, and talk a lot more about that. Talking amongst ourselves about it is a good start, but we also need to talk with customers, vendors, and other folks looking at XML.
|
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
|