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On Fri, 2002-04-26 at 15:10, Mike Champion wrote:
> 4/26/2002 2:41:04 PM, "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com> wrote:
> >I'm not expecting the entire world to use XML syntax - it's not ideal
> >for everything - but when it's time to present a canonical and
> >processable view of information, it's glorious stuff.
>
> I presume that most of us agree in principle. There are a few
> smokestacks spoiling the glorious view, however:
Sure thing. It's an industrial landscape, right?
> 1- Not all syntax is canonical; you need something like the
> InfoSet to say that single/double quotes don't matter, etc..
No, but XML is in some substantial sense more canonical than the
collection of all other formats. Whether or not you use single/double
quotes is much less an issue than whether you use a binary format of
your own invention.
> 2 - Some syntax is sugar, but sugar is tasty: CDATA sections come to
> mind; they're nice for some things (escaping scripts being the
> canonical example) but they'll disappear from your syntax if you run
> it through XSLT.
Sure. I was looking at XML syntax as a canonical view on other
information in this quote. For my own work, I'm doing what I can to
preserve things like CDATA sections and single/double quote distinctions
in MOE, as I can find the time, but can't take responsibility for the
syntax damage other people's use of an Infoset view inflicts.
> 3 - There's a lot of inefficiency in that syntax, either for humans
> to produce, or to stuff down narrow bandwidths to small devices, or
> whatever.
Yep. That's where XML as a canonical view is handy. "XML's a pain for
this!" "Okay, fine. Do what you want to do, but when it's time to ship
it to me, transform it into XML."
> 4 - For better or worse, many recent specs are not based on the
> syntax -- XPath/XQuery, SOAP, DOM (of course). This produces
> an impedence mismatch.
Yep. I can't do much about those except curse the dark.
> So, how do you deal with all this and still enjoy the view?
Pretty much what I do with the current state of politics in my home
country (USA). Keep talking, and hope that things change over time. I
do what I can to encourage people to use XML, and hopefully to use it in
ways that are easily shared.
I don't expect the world to change itself for me. I hope that a few of
my ideas might take root in the world.
--
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com
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