xml-dev - Re: The failure to communicate XML - and its costs to e-business

[Richard Lanyon <rgl@decisionsoft.com>]

On Thu, 5 Oct 2000, Matt Sergeant wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Oct 2000 AndrewWatt2000@aol.com wrote:

> > If XML ever was "simple", can it seriously be suggested that that remains 
> > true after the addition of SMIL, XSLT, XPath, RDF and XHTML and the soon 
> > emergence of SVG, XPointer, SMIL 2.0, SMIL Animation, CC/PP, Canonical XML, 
> > XML Digital Signatures etc?

> I find this like saying ASCII is not simple because you can write Perl in
> it.

The question is, how much of the XML-associated technologies do you
/need/ in order to be able to start working on XML? The answer used to
be XML 1.0 and Namespaces, possibly soon to include XLink, XPointer,
XML Base and maybe XML Schemas. While mastering XML 1.0 isn't too
difficult, and Namespaces are OK with a few trip-ups, XPointer and
esp. XML Schemas are not trivial. Whether they're any worse than SGML
I don't know.

> > But other issues also arise. Not least is the sheer volume of material which 
> > needs to be mastered.

> I don't need to learn lisp so that I can say that I truly *know*
> ASCII. Learn what you need to.

Fair enough, but this is potentially in conflict with:

> > 2. Improve the integration between W3C activities

> Thats a worthy goal.

The more integration you have, the greater the danger of building a
gigantic monolith. There's obviously an optimum between lots of small
unrelated specs and one huge monstrosity, so I guess the question is,
which side of the optimum are we on?

-- 
Richard Lanyon (Software Engineer) |     "The medium is the message"
XML Script development,            |             - Marshall McLuhan
DecisionSoft Ltd.                  |