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

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

It's even tougher than that sometimes.  

o  XML:  easy to illustrate by example. 
It is smarter ASCII and you only have 
to toss up a content markup and a 
presentation markup to get the point across.

o  XML processor.  Tough.  To really Get It, 
someone has to become acquainted with the 
InfoSet.  In fact, if they get past that, 
almost all of the other specs are easier 
to absorb. But Rick, I've sat and watched 
COM programmers twist in the wind on that 
one.  They can't get the infoset separate 
from schemas.  Something in the object 
background predisposes them to not be able 
to think at that level.   When they do 
get it, infoSet clears up a lot of 
What All Those Other Specs Are For.

o  All the other specs.  These really are 
use-case problems as you say but the other dimension is 
role.  For example, schemas should be understood 
by everyone, not in that they should be 
able to write them, but understand their 
role in applying them.  I am thinking here 
about a business manager who needs to know 
that he is responsible for ensuring that 
a particular schema is called out in a 
specific process by contract whether that 
contract be in english on paper, or in 
XLang in a BizTalk orchestration engine.  
He may not want to understand more about 
the namespace unless his business owns 
it.  That is a hairy issue not so much 
in the technical implications, but the 
social/political implications of association 
of the string to domain and authority.

Otherwise, Steve's example about the 
page being presentable vs being more 
functional is really about as deep 
as the Dvorak's need to understand.  

XML enables more functional web pages.  
People who only want to read web pages 
don't need XML.  They can call a travel 
agent to book a flight.

Len Bullard
Intergraph Public Safety
clbullar@ingr.com
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Rick JELLIFFE [mailto:ricko@geotempo.com]

We can only talk about simplicity as a virtue after stating when and for
whom or for what purpose, IMHO.  A lot of it comes down to disagreements
about layering and options which can only be evaluated in some kind of
context, e.g. your use-cases.