RE: SAX Filters for Namespace Processing

[Jonathan Borden <jborden@mediaone.net>]

Tom Bradford wrote:
>
> Never implied that.  I'm saying that XML has gotten to the point where
> its simplicity has been totally obscured by the complexity of peripheral
> layers that can't easily be removed once you've introduced at least one
> of them.  Personally, I resent that academics force average users to put
> up with various levels of cerebral mind flexing by academics, just for
> the sake of having to prove that you're smart and that you are capable
> (though not really) of producing a 100% solution.
>

What is the relationship between the first half of this paragraph to the
second half. That is to say, if you are asserting that XML has generally
become too complex, how can you support the _cause_ of this to be in any way
related to _academics_?

Of course the W3C and other organizations involved with XML such as OASIS do
have some academic ties, yet these organizations are hardly what I would
call primarily academic, rather trade consortia. Its a bunch of companies
who are suposedly responding to customer needs who have come up with the
family of XML specifications. Indeed when academics have been involved, it
seems that _generally_ less rather than more complexity is the result.

> Sure, when you don't want somebody to perform a task, because you hold
> some proprietary intellectual domain over it, you make the task as
> complex as possible in order to keep others from understanding it, and
> thus maintain your status as 'expert' of that task.  Subliminally, this
> is what many programmers have done in the past.  It's called job
> security.

Yeah I guess I have real difficulty seeing how this is 'academic'. Being an
academic, I see real respect given to clarity of speaking, teaching, writing
and action.

>
> Or how about a system like a mouse trap.  Very simple... a piece of
> wood, a spring, and a trigger.  Many people have tried to build a better
> one, and usually their ideas have to do with a system much more complex,
> but the fact is, a mouse trap, though crude, and fairly barbaric does
> the job.  It's easy to set up, and it isn't very expensive.  That's why
> people from complete idiots to total geniuses use them.

One could say the same for aspirin or penecillin, however before medicine
became academic, people were using leaches or worse. The internet has itself
been very much an academic project until commercial interests have become
involved. It seems that we have gained the ability to buy stuff online at
any time of the day or night, regardless of whether its something we want or
need, with the tradeoff of being afflicted with endless amounts of spam
email. Your pick.

-Jonathan