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On Tuesday 15 January 2002 09:22 am, Jonathan Robie wrote:
> Actually, Jon Bosak has always been careful to say that XML does not
> define the meaning of the data. In the early days, he used to show
> an audience a DTD written in Japanese and point out that the meaning
> of the structures it described really aren't obvious to those who do
> not speak Japanese.
If I remember rightly, I gave him the DTD and the sample document for
that... I could be wrong.
I used to go one further and show a YACC grammar that corresponded to
the DTD, and a set of S-expressions that corresponded to the document,
and tell people that they didn't *need* SGML/XML, but they might
*want* it. Then I'd explain the benefits of text-based formats,
standardization, etc.
I think it is in the best interest of the XML community (and
especially those reponsible for the creation, and ongoing development
of the beast) to dispel the myths of magic surrounding it. If we
don't, we are doing everyone else a great disservice.
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