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Re: Please stop writing specifications that cannot beparsed/pr

• From: B Tommie Usdin <btusdin@mulberrytech.com>
• To: Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org>
• Date: Sat, 27 May 2023 08:34:38 -0400

> On May 27, 2023, at 12:26 AM, Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org> wrote:
> 
> I have a hypothesis that such wilfully-ignorant, non-geeky, non-hackery, people
> are becoming less influential, less attractive, and rarer ...

I am of a different opinion. 

There are far too many knowable things for anyone to have deep knowledge of all of them. Some people choose to know a little about many things (generalists), some people choose to know a lot about a few things (specialists). Generalists seem to have an easier time in life than specialists. Specialists seem to be the people who get important things done. Slighting specialists because they are not generalists (or specialists in some topic other than their specialty) is unhelpful; insisting that they make the time and devote the energy to learn skills outside their area of expertise is an effort to dilute their genius, and likely to fail.

To circle back to the discussion of why standards are written in XML: 
I want the geeky hackery people to make it so easy to do things we know will be long-term helpful (such as create standards in tractable, long-term stable formats) that the specialists can do it without knowing anything about it. 

Our win will come not when we bully the ignorant into learning our way but when we make our way easy, invisible, and attractive to people who are paying attention to other things. 

-- Tommie 

=================================================================================== 
B. Tommie Usdin			mailto: btusdin@mulberrytech.com
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.	https://www.mulberrytech.com                                                                    
Phone: 301/315-9631                                                                                       
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Mulberry Technologies, Inc.: A Consultancy Specializing in XML for Prose Documents
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• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Please stop writing specifications that cannot beparsed/processed by software
    • From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org>
  • Re: Please stop writing specifications that cannot beparsed/processed by software
    • From: Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie>

• References:
  • Please stop writing specifications that cannot be parsed/processed bysoftware
    • From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
  • Re: Please stop writing specifications that cannot beparsed/processed by software
    • From: Marcus Reichardt <u123724@gmail.com>
  • Re: Please stop writing specifications that cannot beparsed/processed by software
    • From: B Tommie Usdin <btusdin@mulberrytech.com>
  • Re: Please stop writing specifications that cannot beparsed/processed by software
    • From: Shlomi Fish <shlomif@shlomifish.org>