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RE: Re: maps

• To: "'Simon St.Laurent'" <simonstl@s...>, Liam Quin <liam@w...>
• Subject: RE: Re: maps
• From: Micah Dubinko <MDubinko@c...>
• Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 21:34:04 -0700
• Cc: xml-dev@l...

An unpopular (but possible with current technology) answer is that the ° and
' and " and even N|S|E|W stuff is window dressing, and that the actual value
is just a number:

<zoo>
  <name>Utica Zoo</name>
  <lat>75.25</lat>
  <long>43.08333333333333</long>
</zoo>

S and E values would be a negative number, etc.

.micah

From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@s...]
Sent: Sunday, August 04, 2002 1:51 PM
To: Liam Quin
Cc: xml-dev@l...
Subject:  Re: maps

At 03:51 PM 8/4/2002 -0400, Liam Quin wrote:
>[I have cc' postmaster@x... becasue none of my xml dev posts in the past
>  year or two seem to have made it to the list]

This seems to be a continuing problem for some folks. (I'll happy forward 
messages to xml-dev if that helps.)

>On Sun, Aug 04, 2002 at 12:43:36PM -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> > There's no type in WXS for locations.  I can't use the built-in types to
> > express something like:
> >
> > <zoo>
> >    <name>Utica Zoo</name>
> >    <lat>75°15'00" N</lat>
> >    <long>43°05'00" W</long>
> > </zoo>
> >
>
>It sounds like you're hankering after some of the minimisation featuers
>in SGML -data tag, shortref, etc.

No, I'm looking for a cleaner approach to mapping between the lexical and 
value spaces that lets me map the lexical space to my own value spaces - 
value spaces which can be represented explicitly (if verbosely) in markup, 
at that.

>The XML way to do this, I claim, is
><zoo>
>   <name>Utica Zoo</name>
>     <lat>
>       <deg>75</deg>
>       <min>15</min>
>     </lat>
>    <long>
>       <deg>43</deg>
>       <min>05</min>
>    </long>
></zoo>
>
>Now you can represent both lat and long in W3C XML Schema.

But that's simply a bizarre way to make me type more.  A smarter approach 
is to let humans (or GPS gadgets) type 75°15'00" N and provide a mapping 
from that to a value structure.  Using Regular Fragmentations, I can use 
regular expressions break that down into:

   <lat><deg>75</deg><min>15</min><sec>00</sec><hem>N</hem></lat>

If the normalized form you present above is so obviously good, then how 
exactly did we get stuck with gHorribleKluge and a variety of other
nastiness?

I'd guess we got there by focusing on notions of strong typing from other 
aspects of computing - which, I've argued previously, are simply a bad fit 
for markup.

>XML is a way to represent structure. You aer saying that it is flawed
>because it doesn't natively understand arbitrary other ways to
>represent structure.  But that is not a goal of XML. Neither was
>terseness, of course :-)

Unfortunately, that's a goal that W3C XML Schema expressly sets out to 
achieve and then falls flat on its face for any but a tiny number of 
mappings from lexical to value.  It is both too much (a huge pile of spec 
to implement) and too little (for cartographers, anyone who cares about 
units, etc.)


Simon St.Laurent
"Every day in every way I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue


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