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Re: XUL Compact Syntax Study Now Online - Is XML too hardfor A

• To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Subject: Re: XUL Compact Syntax Study Now Online - Is XML too hardfor Aunt Trudie?
• From: Mike Fitzgerald <mikefz@w...>
• Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 11:17:21 -0600
• Cc: "'xml-dev'" <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE03F9F66A@h...>
• References: <15725CF6AFE2F34DB8A5B4770B7334EE03F9F66A@h...>
• User-agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (Windows/20040207)

Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> It is like guitar tablature: easy to compose in and read for 
> a guitar player, and therefore, it is useful.  On the other 
> hand, one never learns to read music or understand traditional 
> theory, so advanced guitar students are weaned off it as 
> early as possible because what they learn in guitar tablature 
> doesn't transfer to other musical domains easily, so one 
> remains a guitar player and does not become a musician. A 
> bit over the top, but the point is valid.  Ease can be 
> bought at the price of general knowledge and skill.

I don't know of anyone who hasn't come to RNC without going through the XML door first. 
Maybe David Tolpin? I don't think of RNC as a learning tool, like guitar chord tables, but 
rather as an express train for frequent rail riders. Nevertheless, I found RNC VERY easy 
to learn [1] after using RELAX NG's XML syntax for over a year.

> Addictions impose a cost on society.  Compact syntaxes do 
> as well.  If one starts there, one ends up in the same 
> cul de sac as VRML was prior to X3D if that syntax is 
> used in an instance.  Some VRMLers who have done quite 
> a bit of VRML despise XML and aren't shy about saying it 
> to the point of dissing X3D at every opportunity.

On the contrary, my addiction to RNG/RNC has had NO negative side effects on me or on 
society. In fact, "I can quit anytime, I just don't want to." %^} RNG is one of those 
things that has kept me a "true believer" in XML.[2] I have never dissed XML or RNG's XML 
syntax because I use RNC. It makes using XML downstream easier.

XML is the river; little streams like compact syntaxes -- relatively private like Tom 
Passin's nifty brief Pythonesque syntax or public like RNC -- feed into the that river by 
gravity. That's why people can get along with XML: They can do there own thang and deliver 
  an artifact of their work in a shirt and tie -- well-formed and valid XML -- and still 
get into the big party.

Mike

[1] http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/06/19/rng-compact.html
[2] http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4658

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    • From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>

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