xml-dev - RE: Joel on XML

[David LeBlanc <whisper@oz.net>]

Ok, I finally had to go and see what all the fuss about .net was. I went and
read the MS "white paper" and came to the conclusion that MS is going to tie
all their applications together (mistakingly considering them standards it
would appear) using xml and the web. Big woopee. Of course, they somehow
magically convey the notion that theirs is and will be THE vision for such
an idea. It's not only not the only vision, it's not the first exposition of
such a vision by a long shot.

Then I read Joel's paper. I somewhat agree with it and somewhat don't. It's
a good idea, just not Mediocresoft's vision of it. I'd say more, but it's
better to just go out and outperform Mediocresoft rather then wasting time
on discussing them.

Dave LeBlanc

-----Original Message-----
From: ricko@mail.geotempo.com [mailto:ricko@mail.geotempo.com]On Behalf
Of Rick JELLIFFE
Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2000 11:18 PM
To: Dave Winer
Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: Joel on XML


> Dave Winer wrote:
>
> Please read this essay, written by Joel Spolsky:
>
> http://joel.editthispage.com/stories/storyReader$133
>
> "If you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen.
> Sometimes smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create
> these absurd, all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe
> that are all good and fine, but don't actually mean anything at all."
>
> This is what I was trying to say to anyone who would listen at WWW9.
> (And on the Syndication mail list, and everywhere XML comes up.)

The rest of Spolsky's article is about vaporware and FUD, not
over-abstraction. That paragraph is an odd blip.

Is he really saying that the idea of messages is an over-abstraction?
This is pretty strange: packets are not an over-abstraction, JavaBeans
are not an over-abstrction, why should XML messages be an
over-abstraction necessarily?

Criticizing a general, non-technical marketing blurb for being vague is
futile. The pupose of those white-papers is so that barely-technical
decision-makers outside MS feel confident that MS has a good plan and
they are leading not reacting.  It is like Lousiana Governor Huey Long's
last compaign slogan "Vote for me, I'm not crazy".  I have not read a
"white-paper" from a large corporatoin that was not similarly
insubstantial: they are not written for us.

Rick Jelliffe