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Re: Why XML?

• To: Matthew.Bennett@f...
• Subject: Re: Why XML?
• From: Mitch Amiano <mamiano@n...>
• Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 21:43:14 -0400
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <OF1AE715F3.D4D85349-ONCA256D28.0001D5B4@f...>
• Organization: Software Adjuvant
• References: <OF1AE715F3.D4D85349-ONCA256D28.0001D5B4@f...>
• Reply-to: Mitch Amiano <mamiano@n...>
• User-agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030312

Matthew.Bennett@f... wrote:
> Hi All,
/snip/
> Two things make me wonder about the competence of those who designed XML.
> 1. If you wanted to keep it comprehensible, why invent nonsense like
> attributes? What can they do that nested elements can't? W3C has violated a
> first-order principle of language design; that there should only be one way
> of doing something, such that everyone ought to devise the 'same' program

Why should this make you question the competence of those who worked to define XML? 
They didn't invent attributes, and even if they had I don't see why they should be constrained by a dogma that there should only be one way of doing something. There are plenty of counterexamples in which robust systems, both natural and synthetic, display multiple ways of expressing a relationship or accomplishing a result. It was clear at the time that there were simple pragmatic considerations that made their choice to adopt SGML syntax a no-brainer. In any case, hypothesizing about what they should have done then is like pushing a rope.

> to solve the 'same' problem. COBOL obviously is the grossest offender in
> this regard, but XML's scarcely any better. And 2. If a start tag must have
> a matching end tag, what purpose is served by that ridiculous slash in an
> end-tag

But XML doesn't solve problems. It is only when constraints are placed upon XML to define a markup language, and implementations are built, that any problems are solved. And any problems you solve with one implementation are likely to have nuanced differences that will lead over time to multiple ways of "doing something".  I don't see tossing out attributes as being any big win. Though it is wishful thinking, I'd much rather see an unbounded number of orthogonal structures than to see only one. Guess I'll just have to wait for LMNL for that. 

If you have this:

<doc>
<start><start>1<start><start>
<doc>

In which element is 1?

Regards,

Mitch Amiano

> Cheers,
> Matt Bennett
> 
> 
> 
> 
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  • Why XML?
    • From: Matthew.Bennett@f...

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