Re: 2.6 patterns: let's try variations on the XML syntax

Scott Lawton wrote:
> 
> Please don't stop halfway.  Complaints about the syntax being verbose are
> opportunities for articulating the benefits of XML.  If nothing else,
> developers are more than welcome to create text-oriented authoring tools
> that support any syntax they desire.  All we ask is for XML to be the
> neutral -- and universal -- interchange format for all sorts of data; not
> least, XSL.

I've been working with SGML and XML for several years now, and I hear this
mantra repeated every so often. Nobody has yet agreed to take it to its
limit, however. Should we abandon Java and other programming languages
that do not use XML syntax? Should we convert PNG, GIF and JPEG over to
XML syntax? How about MPEG?

XML is only appropriate for some things. The idea that it should be used
for *all things* is quite likely to lead to a backlash from people whose
common sense dictates otherwise. XML already goes incredibly far in using
XSL for everything. Pushing it into the pattern is a bad idea not only
because of the verbosity, but because the verbosity and character set
problems will prevent the language from being used in other contexts, such
as in queries from attribute values in XML documents, or in query
languages meant to be typed on a command line or from a programming
language (like SQL).

 Paul Prescod  - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

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