[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Markup perspective not code (was RE: Re: URIs,
----- Original Message ----- From: "W. E. Perry" <wperry@f...> > > It would have been more accurate to say "markup users are simply using > > pre-defined vocabularies *implemented* by programmers." > > In some limited circumstances, this is an OK way to begin mastering the > skills of markup within a given domain of expertise. This technique, > however, is never more than training wheels. Markup is a skill in its own > right, like research or expository writing, required, or at least very > handy indeed in the expert practice of an increasing number of domains. > Markup is a very different skill from programming. Like basic programming, > basic markup can be taught on simple principles, but like skilled > programmers skilled markup practitioners have refined and mastered > techniques through repeatedly confronting problems which yield to an > understanding of deep patterns. > > Tim Bray eagerly addressed a question on this list yesterday because it > appealed to him as a break from the usual exegesis practiced here. > Questions of the tone, or aesthetics, of this list aside, markup is in fact > a branch of exegetical practice, which is where it differs fundamentally > from programming. At the most mundane level, programming is prescriptive > where markup is descriptive. More generally, programming is ultimately > algorithmic where markup is taxonomic. The differences in mindset are daily > on display on this list, of course. Nevertheless (with all my bias showing) > it seems to me that xml-dev is, and should be, finally about the > development of skilled XML--that is, markup--and much less about the > ancillary business of implementing appropriate algorithms for processing > the wonderful subtleties which the markup grows to describe. Not that there > is not a place (and a need!) for both here. But there are many, many other > places for programmers to whet their craft, and few if any others where the > expert practice of markup is understood as a profound skill. +++1 cheers, jim fuller
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