xml-dev - Re: Myths and Misunderstanding

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@mulberrytech.com>]

At 02:53 PM 5/9/00 -0500, Len Bullard wrote:
>Another day in the snake brain of XML-Dev: quick to react, slow 
>to redact.
>
>1.  No one invented XML.  It is an engineering project with many 
>mothers.  Microsoft certainly made it emerge faster by sponsoring 
>it early, and has implemented it as well as others.  I do question 
>the emotional reactions.  We've been through this "who invented 
>XML" thread before.  Give MS their due; their members quickly 
>corrected the misunderstanding.  Should others credited with being the 
>inventors of XML show the same polite response?

No fair. I think the most emotional reaction of the bunch was mine, in the
original alert, and careful readers will have seen that even I was taking a
step back from the most alarmist inferences that could have been made on
the basis of the Post article (even while I tried to articulate them).
Since then, Mr. Layman has stepped in to correct the Post's misinformation.
That's great. The concern hasn't been over "who invented XML" (was that
debated in the thread?), but about the claim appearing in the Post and
what, if any, light it shed on Microsoft's XML strategy.

If anything, we are providing Microsoft with a service of inestimable
value, the chance to fine-tune their relations with developers in the open
standards arena in word as well as in deed, and to defend themselves
against whatever charges (fair or not) the Post has exposed them to.

As for the "snake brain of XML Dev," surely in a thread entitled "Myth and
Misunderstanding" we should be wary of this particular reification. Whose
is this snake brain, exactly? "Understand that nothing exists apart from
the mind. Know that the mind itself, does not exist" (Tsongkapa). :->

Regards,
Wendell Piez


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@mulberrytech.com
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