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• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: xml-dev@l...
• From: "Alaric B. Snell" <alaric@a...>
• Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 14:04:18 +0000
• In-reply-to: <200212111255.55820.miles@m...>
• References: <5.1.0.14.0.20021211113429.0258e7f8@m...> <200212111255.55820.miles@m...>

On Wednesday 11 December 2002 12:55, Miles Sabin wrote:
> Sean McGrath wrote,
>
> > The world is swimming in such attempts at platform independent
> > fundamental datatypes. None have succeeded in reaching broad
> > acceptance.
> >
> > Time to ask "why?" don't you think? :-)
>
> Certainly ...
>
> But in fairness to ASN.1, this is orthogonal to datatyping and is an
> issue for XML as well. We might have ambitions for it to be genuinely
> universal, but the reality is that it's just another one of the many
> 'universal' notations we have to deal with.
>
> Think of it as a variation on the Burali-Forti paradox: the very act of
> attempting to subsume everything generates something else that's not
> been subsumed.

The thrust of the ASN.1 types is really based on mathematical concepts such 
as 'integer', though. Those are pretty damn universal and have reached broad 
acceptance from particle physics up to the structure of the human brain :-)

>
> Miles
>

ABS

-- 
A city is like a large, complex, rabbit
 - ARP

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