RE: XML is _post_ OO

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

This and the examples Uche presents are 
precisely why the ancients of SGML stayed 
out of programming languages.  There was even 
an organizational separation at the ISO levels. 
Charles was marvelously scrupulous about that 
even when the youngsters around him (like me 
and a few others who now pass for old guys) 
were clamoring for it.  Hungry for it.  Ambitious 
for it.  He quietly held us under the water 
until we relented or turned blue.

When we were doing the MID design, I passed 
the first version (C++ in pointy brackets) to 
Steve deRose.  He sent back an interesting 
critique that came down to "why code in 
pointy brackets?".  Later, Charles and 
Yuri caught me outside the HyTime conference 
hall in Vancouver to ask esssentially the 
same question?   It WAS doable; the MID 
designs worked.  The question was, what 
did it bring to the standards table we 
didn't already have, and would it be 
anymore effective than what we had?

When HTML began to replicate the features 
of the MID inside comments, I had to 
wonder if it wasn't all simply "this 
wins, that loses, who sez? who cares?" 
and at the application layer, that is 
essentially the case.   Applications 
are products.

But at the layer of the standard, it 
is wise not to add functionality for 
the advantage of one particular application 
that makes it hard or expensive for 
others to do their jobs.  Eliminating 
options without regard to the commmon 
opportunity is usually a very bad practice.

XML, like it's parent, is smart ASCII. 
Keep it that way.  When building an 
XML application, all bets are off 
unless you claim to conform to another 
standard or specification, say DOM.

Is XML post-OO?  No.  It is pre-LISP.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

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


-----Original Message-----
From: Al B. Snell [mailto:alaric@alaric-snell.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 10:45 AM
To: Bullard, Claude L (Len)
Cc: Eric Bohlman; Michael Brennan; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: RE: XML is _post_ OO


On Wed, 23 May 2001, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

> However, the interface might be (and very often is) 
> as simple as Import<->Export fields of hopefully 
> structured data.  Can one code smarter interfaces? 
> Sure.  Can one afford to do that often?  No.  So 
> very often it comes down to, show me your names, 
> descriptions, and field lengths, I'll show you 
> mine.  Whatever we determine is common, we exchange. 
> Beyond that, the information loses or Mr Customer 
> pays one of us to make adjustments.

Indeed; standards happen when commonly needed interfaces that really do
the same thing compete and a winner emerges, often aided by pressure from
a nice standards body or nasty vendor...

...but still standards happen. I am perplexed by people who say that
agreed interfaces cannot happen on the Internet.... read the RFCs! People
are not forced to conform, and many implementations add vendor extensions
and all, but unless the standard is broken or vendors get nasty, there is
usually interoperability as per the RFC - the vendor extensions don't
prevent that...

> Len 

ABS