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RE: The subsetting has begun

• To: 'Gavin Thomas Nicol' <gtn@r...>, XML DEV <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: The subsetting has begun
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 09:02:33 -0600

No size fits all.  Sure.

And you are right, lots of systems, most in fact, 
worked without the ESIS.  But the interoperability 
of the systems was poor in the extreme with the 
exception of the operation of exchanging SGML 
and even then, one needed expert knowledge to 
achieve that seamlessly.
 
Ok, but it meant buying an SGML system that was 
production worthy was typically a one-system purchase 
and it was expensive.  SoftQuad tried to break that 
with low cost editors, but went broke doing that. 

Two things about interchangeable parts systems:

1. Costs usually come down over time if the 
manufacturing volume is reasonably high.

2. Systems can be tuned within reasonable 
limits to missions without too much custom 
coding by mixing an matching parts.

I don't dispute the value of custom coding; 
just saying it isn't needed for the majority 
of the work we do.  As I said to David, the 
world of SGML was big systems and specialists 
using publishing systems and not networks. 
That is not the world of XML for the most part.
As a result, if XML is to be a core technology, 
it has to be very resilient and reliable in the 
face of not-quite-ADEPT hands.

len

From: Gavin Thomas Nicol [mailto:gtn@r...]

On Wednesday 26 February 2003 04:00 pm, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> Walter, as much as I respect you, this is like
> saying all rifles should be handmade:  in other
> words, no interchangeable parts.

The point is that even though *some* uses of rifles benefit from mass 
production, it is unreasonable to expect *all* rifle components to be 
interchangeable. After all, a Lee Enfield is great as a bush rifle, but I 
wouldn't want to use it if I was a sniper.

> The days of SGML-pre-ESIS were a nightmare because of that.

Sure, but you also know that even though a lot of good things were done with 
the ESIS, many/most *applications* didn't use it.

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