RE: [xml-dev] XML in the alleged Real World (was Re: [xml-dev] DoesXML-Dev m...

["Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>]

I've used SQL, C++, Java, and C# to write medium sized applications and have never read any of the actual standards or specification documents yet managed to be rather productive with most of my problems being due to errors on my part than due to complexity or design of the language/technology at hand. 
 
On the other hand, I literally read W3C XML recomendations on a daily basis and (in my opinion) still have difficulties in utilizing these technologies in non-trivial applications, many of which are based on the limitations and interconnectedness of these technologies. 
 
If many users constantly have problems with your technology it means one of two things a.) there is something wrong with your users or b.) there is something wrong with the technology. 

	-----Original Message----- 
	From: Thomas B. Passin [mailto:tpassin@comcast.net] 
	Sent: Sun 3/24/2002 2:38 PM 
	To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org 
	Cc: 
	Subject: Re: [xml-dev] XML in the alleged Real World (was Re: [xml-dev] DoesXML-Dev m...
	
	

	[Mike Champion]>
	> >
	> >I don't know if this will be productive/practical on a mailing list but
	are
	> >you able to summarise what your contacts were unable to achieve for their
	> >customers using XSLT? If XSLT isn't working in the real world (or part of
	it)
	> >as you suggest isn't it time to be feeding such real world feedback into
	the
	> >XSLT 2.0 process?
	>
	> First, I only got an impression that folks in the Real World were having
	> trouble applying XSLT to actual customer specs for web applications.  I
	> don't have the details, nor do I understand XSLT myself enough to know
	> whether this is XSLT's problem, their problem, the customers asking for
	> something unreasonable, or what.
	>
	> Second, my colleage Michael Kay *does* know an immense amount about XSLT,
	> has a fair amount of Real World contact as far as I know, and is on
	> the XSLT working group.  I trust that he is passing on feedback to the WG.
	
	To judge by a lot of mail on the Mulberry xslt list, I would say there are a
	lot of people who are trying to work with xml and xslt without reading
	anything much about it, including the specs.  So they don't realize there
	are forbidden characters, and they don't know that xslt creates trees which
	may then be serialized, thinking rather that it is some kind of text
	formatter.  They don't know that   is defined for html but not for xml,
	and so on.
	
	In other words, they probably are looking at some examples and thinking that
	is all there is.  That worked pretty well with html, especially earlier
	versions, and I think it had a lot to do with the rapid spread of web sites.
	It's really a tribute to the design of xml that you can get useful work done
	without knowing much more. But as we know, you start to run into problems
	when you want to do more advanced things but haven't done your homework,
	read the specs, and so on.
	
	My view is that it is good to be getting people involved on basically a
	hobbyist level to start with, because that will tend to lead to a much
	larger base of serious users.  We don't want them dropping out, though,
	because it is too hard to move on to more advanced uses.
	
	Cheers,
	
	Tom P
	
	
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