xml-dev - Re: Do SGML and XML co-exist?

[Len Bullard <cbullard@hiwaay.net>]

Jon Bosak wrote:
> 
> Len is no doubt referring to the gimmick of tossing a copy of the
> 30-page XML spec into the first rows of an SGML audience without
> killing anyone.  Credit for this wonderful piece of theater belongs to
> Tim Bray, not me.

Good show, good performance.  Is it so?  XML is big and getting bigger. 
Yet, this is by application expansion, not expansion of XML 1.0, so, the 
answer is Yes, it is. 

> | Personally, I give credit to Yuri Rubinsky, President of SoftQuad
> | until his untimely death, to the birth of XML.
> 
> Me too.  He was obviously heading in this direction with SoftQuad
> Panorama and his efforts to engage the Web community with "SGML on the
> Web".  I would never have taken up the torch if Yuri had lived; I
> would simply have kept following him.  I have felt throughout the XML
> effort that I have just been trying to realize Yuri's vision.

I loved Yuri.  He was a good man.  He had his business and 
he kept that on a track that both benefitted SGML and his business.
He was not a saint.  He was an excellent diplomat across language 
boundaries, communities that were both sensitive and hungry. 
Communities 
need leaders.  Yuri found the talent and dedicated his life to it.  
Yuri always knew that it was people and SGML, not one or the other. 
He knew what the stakes were.  He understood the importance of it. 

Big shoes to fill.  You've done well, Jon.
 
> In general, I don't worry that the pioneers will be forgetten in the
> end.  Eventually the historians will catch up with this and we shall
> all just become footnotes in someone's doctoral dissertation.  Credit
> will be given where it's due.

Some.  Credit is a funny thing.  It takes a lot of effort 
to find the credit among the records unless those that see opine.   
Individuals count.  History is just history.  The tale of community 
is a tale of the names and adventures of people.   

XML is language.   The hand that touches is real.

Contracts are made among people.  That is all.  SGML, XML, 
SML, these are just names we give to things we conceive. 
The power is in the agreement.  The power is in the community.

I like Apache.  Good show! Good show!

> But I agree that it would be hard to understand Yuri's impact without
> having seen him in action.

No it won't.  We are his friends.  We tell them. 

o  Charles made it.  Yuri sold it.  It was cool.

o  Next?

len



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