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RE: [permathread:semantics] What Markup Is For

• To: "'W. E. Perry'" <wperry@f...>, XML DEV <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: [permathread:semantics] What Markup Is For
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 14:54:30 -0500

It is me quoting me from somewhere long ago. One 
who does a lot of declarative work eventually 
recognizes the political aspects of naming the 
names and understands that how much interoperability 
is truly necessary is always a local choice.

You aren't wrong.  Names will do for an improvisor; 
however, the first time someone wants to faithfully 
reproduce a piece, one needs the values.  It depends 
on what the system is and is to be used for that 
makes the difference in where one puts the emphasis.

VRML is a splendid example.  Underdefining the 
rendering and behavioral specifications meant that 
it always came down to having to specify the 
browser as well.  One of the excellent things 
happening in the next generation, X3D, besides 
the XML-encoding (admirable, but an example 
of how crowd selection made a less effective 
encoding more popular and integratible than 
a superior encoding), is the concentration 
on getting behavioral and rendering fidelity 
in multiple browsers.

1.  Without rendering fidelity, CAD applications 
don't work.  Without rendering fidelity, game 
applications don't work.

2.  Without both, it might as well be a proprietary 
language because it will come down to a one 
browser world.

Walter, I agree in principle but in practice, 
types and behaviors do matter in standards.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: W. E. Perry [mailto:wperry@f...]

"Bullard, Claude L (Len)" wrote:

> "Nodes is Nodes.  Properties is Properties.  Tell me who gets to name the Names
> so we can get on with business."

I don't know the source of this quote. I would, however, insist that it is just
as potent to choose items by their names as it is to give those names to those
items. Both are necessary forms of recognition. Both are expressions of
expertise. Both are effectively the association, via the name, of the thing named
to a local process, in the execution of which some part of the thing named is
instantiated with particular type and value. In Sean's example, the
percussionist's primary expertise is realized when he plays notes, whether they
are presented to him in musical notation or by some other labelling scheme, and
thereby instantiates their types and values. If this particular percussionist
claims additional expertise as a teacher he must demonstrate it by labelling the
musical types and values of his notes with words which his audience can recognize
sufficiently to associate epistemological processes of their own with the musical
content which the words describe, and from that content identified by those
labels to elaborate their own particular semantics.

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