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• From: Jim DeLaHunt <list+xml-dev@jdlh.com>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Tue, 17 May 2022 23:48:33 -0700

Shlomi:

hi all,

see https://www.shlomifish.org/meta/FAQ/why_xml.xhtml :
…[snip]…
what do you think?

I think that I am glad you articulated these reasons. They overlap with my reasons, and your words help me explain myself to my skeptics.

However, when you wrote this:

Now, with respect to HTML 5, the Markdowns and AsciiDoc, while I use them
sometimes, they are less structured and more errorprone than many XML grammars,
and often are not semantic enough for all my use cases.

… my first reaction was, are you using an XML-aware editor to do your data entry?  Because one source of pushback against XML languages and in favour of markdowns and AsciiDoc, which I encounter in projects, is the assumption that we can only expect authors to use plain text editors, with no XML syntax support. And in a plain text editor, I think it genuinely is easier — less errorprone — to author in a markdown language or in AsciiDoc.

Also, the complement to "less structured" is "less complex". I know one project where some doc maintainers are proposing switching away from the XML-based DocBook language, to AsciiDoc, because there are so many entities and "more structured" capabilities that it is complex to figure out for a casual contributor. These maintainers judge that it is better to have less structure but to be accessible to casual contributors of documentation improvements.

You might want to consider addressing these points in your essay.

I hope this is the kind of helpful feedback you are looking for.

Best regards,
      —Jim DeLaHunt

.   --Jim DeLaHunt, jdlh@jdlh.com     http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
      multilingual websites consultant

      2201-1000 Beach Ave, Vancouver BC V6E 4M2, Canada
         Canada mobile +1-604-376-8953

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: [RFC] "Shlomi =?UTF-8?B?RmlzaOKAmXM=?= FAQ - Why areyou still using XML?"
    • From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org>

• References:
  • [RFC] "Shlomi =?UTF-8?B?RmlzaOKAmXM=?= FAQ - Why are you stillusing XML?"
    • From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org>