Re: The Results (Was RE: ASN.1 and XML)

["Al B. Snell" <alaric@alaric-snell.com>]

On Thu, 24 May 2001, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:

> Al, good buddy, email compatriot, funky fellow on other side of big pond,

Funky? http://love.warhead.org.uk/~alaric/images/alaric.jpg - take that back :-)

> let's 
> go back a few years.  "All you need is love... dah dah dahdahdah"... no not 
> that far back. That's the Sixties. Great music; too much dieing.  

Mmmm, early Pink Floyd.

> Let's go back to say... 1989.  What was happening?  
> 
> Most of us here on this list were sitting behind big scary 
> walls.  Some of the walls, particularly for those of us with .us or .ru 
> extensions, had very big very scary guns on them.  To have a conversation, 
> we had to get a visa, get a briefing, get a debriefing.  We had to get 
> on an airplane; stay in bad hotels, eat rotten food made by British chefs. 
> Some of us couldn't get out at all.  Some died trying.
>
> We lived in fear of what we didn't understand and didn't understand we 
> were afraid of.  We were afraid of dieing in one big orgy of hot
> thermonuclear 
> bean dip without ever having had the chance to get acquainted with the
> Doritos.

Aye, around that time I was designing nuclear bunkers...

> figuring out how to hook up discarded weapons stuff left laying around 
> by the guys on the walls with the big scary guns,  

Mmmm, military surplus!

> I call that results.  I call that a dammed freakin' miracle.   We got
> together. 

Roger Waters, Radio KAOS, last track quite nicely captures the sentiment
:-)

> As for making it a better place to converse, well, that is why we are on
> this particular 
> party line.  If ASN.1 has ideas to make it better, bring 'em on.  If the
> idea is 
> to replace the phone, forget it.  Mammals are partying here and won't stop
> to clean up 
> the mess.  They like the mess.  They are messy mammals.

Indeed. XML is here to stay, no doubt about that, it has hit the
mainstream. I want to help merge the goodness of ASN.1 into that, since it
is very compatible, but this isn't helped by people who (often for no
fault of their own) think that XML is the state of this particular art or
(even worse!) are proud of it and fall foul to that scourge of the
computer industry, My-Favourite-Technology-ism.

(Note: ASN.1 isn't my favourite technology, I prefer ONC XDR for most
things since it has better tool availability (better even than XML's but I
digress...)).

In order to prevent myself from falling foul to Favourite-Technology-ism
and the sickening envangelism and logo-covered-T-shirt wearing it begats,
I regard all technology as hopelessly insufficient for the problems facing
humanity :-)

> Come dance in the dirt!  It's ALLL Goood!

I hope I get to meet you one day, Len :-) I know I've been coming over as
Mr. Militant on this issue, but what I see as misplaced evangelism touches
a raw nerve! I'm fluffy really.

> Len 

ABS

-- 
                               Alaric B. Snell
 http://www.alaric-snell.com/  http://RFC.net/  http://www.warhead.org.uk/
   Any sufficiently advanced technology can be emulated in software