RE: Request for a poll: (was RE: Datatypes vs anarchy)

[Michael Brennan <Michael_Brennan@Allegis.com>]

I'd be happy to contribute to the poll. I'm holding off on that, though, to
see if that web-based questionaire is put up (rather than shower the list
with my response).

I thought I'd respond on a more general note, though. I think a great deal
of the controversy and differing opinions is due to people using XML in very
different ways toward very different ends. In a sense, this is a great
testament to the flexibility and power of XML. Where we've gone wrong is
trying to standardize too much. XML Schema presents, I think, an important
lesson for us to learn. There was too much expectation on the part of too
many people for a grand unified schema language that would support
everyone's use case. Those who say the WG should go back to drawing board
and come up with something that is free of controversy and appeases everyone
do not have a firm grasp of reality. That is an unachievable goal. I think
the WG should have tried to achieve less, but I suspect selling all of the
participants on that vision would have been a hard sell. Too many parties
look for a W3C spec to sanction and bless anything they would ever want to
do with a schema language.

I think the time has come for some of the different sub-communities within
the XML community to part ways, to some degree. We need to stop looking for
those grand unified specs and resign ourselves to diversity. Sometimes the
fork in the road is a good thing; it means we can get on our way unimpeded
instead of bickering endlessly about where we should all be headed. We are
not all trying to go to the same destination.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sean McGrath [mailto:sean@digitome.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 7:47 AM
> To: Rick Jelliffe; xml-dev
> Subject: Re: Request for a poll: (was RE: Datatypes vs anarchy)
> 
> 
> [Rick Jelliffe]
> >Do I detect that, despite a year passing since SML managed 
> to divert a lot
> >of high-quality people's attentions from Schemas, people are 
> still madly
> >keen to ignore the things they can change and fart around 
> with things they
> >cannot.
> 
> I'm trying to understand why I am in a minority. That is my
> primary motivation for seeing the results of the poll.
> Many people I have total respect for do not see the problems
> I see. One conjecture is that this is because they are doing
> things differently and perhaps I need to change the
> way I work. Another is that I am terminally stupid.
> Either way, I would learn something from a poll.
> 
> I'm going to send a follow up post with a use case
> I see as common and problematic. Perhaps this
> will help me to figure this all out...