Re: Steve Ballmer is cracking up

[Sanjay Sharma <leoaugust@yahoo.com>]

 

Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote

... he hollered (but then he always hollers) "XML IS BIGGER THAN THE GUI!  BIGGER THAN THE PC! 

 

_________________

 

I think the situation is completely the reverse.

 

1. GUI is bigger than XML.
2. And, GUI is bigger than the PC.
3. And, PC is bigger than XML (because it would be hard to implement XML efficiently without a Digital Computer).

 

The reason is simple. GUI is a frame work for "doing" programming. Compared to the Character Based programming, Graphical (icons, windows, etc.) Based programming is more powerful, esp.. for small problems. But then aren't all problems small?

 

Further, instead of applying the concepts of XML to Characters, when the same concepts are applied to Graphical Objects the implementation is much more powerful and intuitively satisfying. And there is not much tweaking that needs to be done to the "XML framework" to handle "graphical" objects compared to Character Based Objects.

 

I have written a Ph.D. and in May 2001 defended this concept at North Carolina State University. As part of thesis we have created a device called the Sharma-Winchester Machine (akin to the Turing Machine) that "is based on the Graphical User Interface in preference to the Character User Interfaces, uses standard folders and files (esp.. archives like zip files that can save the path information about files), and is based on a hierarchical storage design."  "The Machine can help the managers deal with structured and unstructured data, and add structure to unstructured data by an iterative process."

 

The underlying concept may be thought of as "GUI framework mapped to XML framework."

 

If anyone is interested please let me know. I would love Red Hat to make something out of it, though SAS would be in a stronger position to do so.

 

Thanks,

 

Sanjay.