xml-dev - RE: It is Pretty Dumb (Was RE: Not so stupid (was re: More StupidXMLArti

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

From: Joshua Allen [mailto:joshuaa@microsoft.com]

>I like David's comment about "Our fault, not his".  That's always the way
it
>is. 

<rant>It's SGML's fault.  We simply should have let it die and the web with
it, 
or at least, the web could have gone on as the limited vision of it's 
inventor:  a way to push science abstracts to people on the floors 
above the steam pipe. 

A thirty year old concept for generic coding was reinvented as HTML, pushed 
with free software and a generation war social agenda on to the world 
stage.  With the obvious ease but narrow application and greed for 
notoriety and wealth for nitro in the gas, it succeeded in becoming 
a dominant technology.  Now at every level, the same technique replicates 
as each technology is presented.  "As the twig is bent," Joshua, "so 
grows the tree."   

That isn't always the way it is.  That is the way 
it is when populism is substituted for strategy, foresight and planning. 
It got your company into the clutches of the DoJ, and markup into the 
clutches of the W3C.  It took years of dedicated work from individuals 
and groups, renamed it, and then claimed that work was responsible every 
time some kid can't get his code to run, or some old man wants to make 
a few more bucks off yet another op-ed piece of trash.  At every
opportunity, 
someone finds rewriting history easier than facing up to the feet of clay 
of heroes who started the bloody business when they looked to the world 
and said, "gotta make it simple.  People are too dumb to handle complexity" 
but didn't take that half truth to the logical extent:  it can only be 
simple if we control it for them (see Winer's article in XML Mag: "you don't

need to know, a small group who cares...").  But it won't work like Dave 
describes and hopefully, he knows that.  Unless they do understand the 
tech, the schemas, namespaces, etc., they make catastrophic decisions for 
their products and customers, and guess what, when it falls over, it 
will be XML's fault.  The consultants will have their money and leave 
before the bad advice comes to roost.

>So I kindof like when these things get posted; it
>notifies the rest of us of an opportunity to politely offer to improve the
>quality of future reporting.

That's the point.  Again, in a high volume, high power environment, signals 
feedback to the output.  Posting the dumb articles references (which has 
been going on since before XML-Dev was created), is a way to keep up with
the 
zeitgeist, and a means to put palms on the strings before the speakers blow 
or the amplifier burns out.</rant>

len