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RE: Validation vs performance - was Re: Fast text o

• To: 'Michael Champion' <mc@x...>, 'XML DEV' <xml-dev@l...>
• Subject: RE: Validation vs performance - was Re: Fast text output from SAX?
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 09:46:55 -0500

I don't buy it.   I buy that people are creating alternative 
syntaxes, alternative applications (eg, RELAX NG which may 
or may not have an 'unstoppable momentum' but has yet to 
show up in an RFP so not in prime time yet).  I don't buy 
that these are easier to learn or read once one is comfortable 
with XML.  To me the ease of any one feature or the complexity of 
any one language is quickly overcome by the network effect of 
instances and tools shared widely.

Is a binary characterization group a mandate to open up a 
full up replacement or large scale revision of XML?  I doubt 
it.  Syntax is NOT trivial.

We've had simpler syntaxes before.   We've had binaries before. 
We've never had integration at this scale.  We have to be very 
conservative what of the various experiments in the wild are 
adopted into the standards of a working system.  

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Champion [mailto:mc@x...]
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2004 9:25 AM
To: 'XML DEV'
Subject: Re:  Validation vs performance - was Re: 
Fast text output from SAX?



On Apr 19, 2004, at 9:59 AM, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

>
>
> Syntax is NOT trivial.   While one can always make a
> computer-science case for a simpler syntax than XML,
> and one can make a case for alternative schema languages,
> one faces a hard sale for moving away from an established
> syntax because syntax is a human user interface acquired
> by habit.  Once acquired, it becomes easy to use


Hmm, it's not just computer science that is pressing for simpler 
syntaxes. The people experimenting with  workarounds to XML's syntax 
limitations are doing so because it is either NOT easy to use (e.g. for 
human authoring of markup-intensive documents such as stylesheets), 
difficult to get the details right (e.g. the RSS-like feeds that can't 
seem to get character escaping right, forget to declare HTML entities, 
etc.), or find that their customers rebel against the processing 
overhead of XML syntax  compared to what they are used to.  It also 
appears that the official W3C schema language never becomes easy to 
use, and XML projects are increasingly voting with their feet for RELAX 
NG (see http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com today ).

So, syntax is neither trivial to invent or learn, and there is a 
constant tension between the needs of the inventors and the users.  
"Reinventing the wheel" is fine IMHO if it helps find the usability 
problems in the XML standards or new use cases for unrelated standards, 
and as long as the underlying base syntax for interchange evolves 
slowly and in an orderly manner so that a common denominator is 
available when needed.

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