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Re: Data is primary .... why?

• From: Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 19:01:06 -0400

(e) There is no "getting it right".  There is only fitness for purpose
in context.

Change the purpose and/or the context, and it's usually wrong.  Even
(actually, especially) at the table level.  A table is inevitably and
inextricably bound to a perspective.

I now believe that data longevity has more to do with completeness and
fidelity-to-view-of-source than anything else.  If you truly seek to be
faithful to your view of the source, that's the best that can be done,
and nothing better than that is possible.  (Alas.)

One cannot hope to escape one's own context; that's not how things are
for human beings in this universe.  Thoughtful artists know this and
mostly they try to accept it.  The best they can do is the best *they*
can do.  *Their* Muse is the only Muse who is on speaking terms with
them.  Obedience to their Muse is All There Is, regardless of whether or
not the artist finds that fact acceptable.

On 04/01/14 15:53, John Cowan wrote:
> (d) "Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall
> continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need
> your flowchart; it'll be obvious."  (Fred Brooks, /The Mythical
> Man-Month, /1975).
> 
> I updated this for publication in Eric Raymond's 1997 book /The
> Cathedral and the Bazaar/ as "Show me your code and conceal your data
> structures, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your data
> structures, and I won't usually need your code; it'll be obvious."
> 
> Guy Steele then rewrote it again in 2002 for "Objects Have Not Failed"
> as "Show me your interfaces, the contracts for your methods, and I won't
> usually need your field declarations and class hierarchy; they'll be
> irrelevant."  I think Haskell people might agree with that, though they
> don't generally think of themselves as OO folk.
> 
> 
> On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 8:29 PM, Frank Manola <fmanola@acm.org
> <mailto:fmanola@acm.org>> wrote:
> 
>     Now we're getting somewhere.
> 
>     Sent from my iPad
> 
>     On Mar 31, 2014, at 6:29 PM, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com
>     <mailto:mike@saxonica.com>> wrote:
> 
>     >
>     > On 31 Mar 2014, at 20:00, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org
>     <mailto:costello@mitre.org>> wrote:
>     >
>     >> Hi Folks,
>     >>
>     >> Long ago Michael Kay said something like this:
>     >>
>     >>    Data is primary.
>     >>
>     >
>     > I've no idea what the context was, but I think there are probably
>     two ways I would expand the statement:
>     >
>     > (a) Data lasts longer than programs and has more value. Therefore
>     don't lock your data into proprietary formats that won't survive the
>     software used to create them.
>     >
>     > (b) In designing a software system, the core piece of design that
>     you need to get right is the data model.
>     >
>     >
> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Data is primary .... why?
    • From: Thomas Passin <list1@tompassin.net>

• References:
  • Re: Data is primary .... why?
    • From: Frank Manola <fmanola@acm.org>
  • Re: Data is primary .... why?
    • From: John Cowan <johnwcowan@gmail.com>