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RE: Markup perspective not code (wasRE: Re: URIs, co

  • To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • Subject: RE: Markup perspective not code (wasRE: Re: URIs, concrete)
  • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
  • Date: Thu, 1 Aug 2002 15:26:08 -0500
  • Cc: xml-dev@l...

subject for mistakes
Simon St.Laurent wrote:

> To the extent that programmers have influenced the development of XML
> since version 1.0, I think the impact has been severely negative.

Bray responds"

"Too simple I think.  Particularly given that almost all of the 
advantages of XML over SGML were based on the principle of "leave out 
everything except what programmers actually understand and use."

Too wrong headed I think.  XML takes a perspective that 
the only users of markup are programmers, and given 
the DePH, bad ones at that.  It failed that test.

SGML took a view that the end users of markup are 
authors and that programmers earn a living making 
the end users job simple enough to understand 
and easy enough to do.  It succeeded but it irritated 
the programmers who are usually a bit egotistical.

The truth was somewhere in the middle but varies 
by time and location: err... representation.  
It might have been a good idea to get more representation 
for authors on the ERB.   Why not?  Programmers 
can't speak simply enough for the authors to understand 
them and the authors can't speak precisely enough 
for the programmers to take the time to listen.
Not a new story for committees afraid of Internet Time. 

Skonnard writes:

"I agree with Tim here and have a hard time seeing how XML is a useful
*technology* to anyone but "programmers". Users of "markup" (who are not
devs) are simply using pre-defined vocabularies defined by programmers."

Programmers are not the only designers of 
vocabularies.  In fact, that was a big mistake 
to assume in the SGML days and now.  Subject 
matter experts learned DTDs quickly.  The trick 
was to get them to work with the programmer such 
that what was designed was implementable.  Statements 
like "only programmers know this stuff" is how 
I know that an egotistical programmer without a 
lot of experience is doing the job.  Programmers 
make a lot of subject matter mistakes once they 
get into content markup and away from presentation 
markup.   They don't understand the semantics 
of the terminology and usually make godawful 
simplifying assumptions on the way to hardwiring 
the code to their assumptions.

"Nodes is nodes, properties is properties.  Tell 
me who gets to names the names so we can get on 
with business."

XML won't kill markup singlehandedly.  It will 
require the help of the hubris of certain 
programmers.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@t...]



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