RE: is that a fork in the road?

[Sean McGrath <sean@digitome.com>]

At 08:01 AM 3/6/01 -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
[Sean McGrath]
>Possibly it pays to find out why they went down
>that road before you go down the other
>well traveled path.
>
>SGML ignored semantics and didn't have a data model.

Nah. SGML as used in anger by legions of developers
does indeed have a data model - the stuff emitted
by James Clarks nsgmls - ESIS.

As the saying goes, the difference between theory
and practice is smaller in theory than it is
in practice.

The great minds working on SGML and related
standards had little time for ESIS and waxed
lyrical about the benefits of a more abstract
model in which ESIS would be an intellectually
satisfying, mere special case, of a greater
truth.

Perhaps this is true but so too perhaps
is superstring theory.  But you don't worry
about it when you are trying to build
things in the real world.

In summary, I'm saying three things:


1) XML "partical physics" is interesting
but engineers shouldn't have to worry
about it in their day jobs.

2) Unlike partical physics, with XML
we get to define the basic building
blocks of matter rather than have
them foisted upon us by an external
reality.

3) I believe WF XML would make
a great fundamental compound
on which to build.