xml-dev - RE: Microsoft's Role in the XML Community (WAS RE: Important: The SAXC+

[Wendell Piez <wapiez@mulberrytech.com>]

Mike Kay wrote:

At 10:46 AM 6/19/00 +0100, you wrote:
>> From the outside it's impossible to know how or why things 
>> happen this way
>
>No it's not, it's a natural consequence of everything that is known about
>the psychology of computer programming. Microsoft developers, just like the
>rest of us, face a continuous struggle between their creative urge to do
>new, exciting, and useful things, and the requirements coming from their
>paymasters (users, customers, marketing and business strategy people) to do
>boring things like conforming to standards and retaining forwards
>compatibility. The software that comes out tells you precisely the extent to
>which these two opposing forces were balanced in the management culture of
>the organisation.

This is fair enough: if I'd thought it through this far, I'd have suggested
it's the details that can't be known, even if the general trend might be
perfectly intelligible in the terms you've stated them.

What would be cool would be if more software developers were to see how
supporting a standard and forwards-compatibility can be, in certain
circumstances, a direct contribution to something not boring at all, in
fact far more exciting than merely a new toy. (Or even world dominance.
Funny how these two things seem to go together.) As your work with SAXON
demonstrates.

This ought to apply to CSS or XSL-FO (to cite another thread) -- except
that shows, I suppose, that it's also the bean-counters that have to get
excited about standards.

Regards,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@mulberrytech.com
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
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