[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: XML Technologies: Progress via Simplification or Complexif
Hi Folks, Many thanks for the excellent, thought-provoking messages! As I read your comments it occurred to me that it may be useful to make this distinction[1]: Complicated: something is complicated if it is large, contains lots of stuff, is tedious, redundant, annoying, or in some way undesirable. versus Complex: something is complex if it is rich and full of variety and nuances. Thus, by these definitions, complicated is bad and complex is good. Let me provide some examples to demonstrate how these terms may be applied to technologies. With XML you can create instance documents with great complexity. Further, the XML technology itself is very simple, i.e., it has minimal complicatedness. Thus, the XML technology is capable of producing great complexity with minimal complicatedness. Another example is one that Bob Wyman mentioned - Cellular Automata. As Bob mentioned, if you scan through Steven Wolfram's book you will see pictures of great complexity. Yet, these pictures were generated by cellular automata using simple rules. Thus, the Cellular Automata technology is capable of producing great complexity with minimal complicatedness. Wolfram also asserts that all the incredible complexity we see in nature is the result of iterating over simple rules. Thus, nature is capable of producing great complexity with minimal complicatedness. Now, using these terms, let me recast my original question: is it necessary for the next-version of the XML technologies to introduce more complicatedness to attain increased complexity? If XML, Cellular Automata, and all of nature can produce tremendous complexity with minimal complicatedness, then surely XSLT 2.0, XPath 2.0, XML Schemas 2.0, etc should be able to increase their complexity-generating-capability with decreased complicatedness. Yes? Here are some other points that I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on: - The objective of a technology as is progresses to its next version is to increase its complexity-generating-capability. Do you agree? - The mark of a good technology is that as it progresses to its next version it will not only increase its complexity-generating-capability but it will also decrease its complicatedness. Do you agree? /Roger [1] I think that the distinction between complication and complexity is a useful one. I welcome your suggestions on a better definition of the two terms (or even different terms).
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