xml-dev - Re: SGML, XML and SML

[Dan Brickley <Daniel.Brickley@bristol.ac.uk>]

On Mon, 22 Nov 1999, Sean McGrath wrote:

> [Dan Brickley]
> >
> >What goes around comes around! The RDF Interest Group [1] is currently
> >discussing alternate syntaxes for RDF in XML. Sounds like we're being
> >told we'd be better off returning to PICS-NGesque s-expressions.
> 
> Not so AFAIK. I would be interested to read the XML-DEV posts that
> have lead you to this conclusion. Can you point me at them?

I was being slightly tongue-in-cheek, but the combination of Paul
Prescod's msg (which I replied to) and previous SML advocacy seemed to
be heading in this direction. In other words, that for many
data-oriented applications, XML's document-oriented heritage makes it
sometimes challenging to use. I'm far from convinced that a return to
s-expressions, or the creation of a trivial subset (SML), would be
useful right now. There are enough X** specifications and applications
around already to make it a nightmare for non XML-obsessed developers
trying to figure out how the various piecese of the puzzle
inter-relate. Inventing a new subset syntax would make it even hard to
present a coherent picture...

Dan




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