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Re: [xml-dev] Out of topic or out of interest?
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In a message dated 02/05/02 21:30:25 GMT Daylight Time, vdv@dyomedea.com writes:
I don't know how to formulate this email so that it doesn't sound as
critical or inflamatory which is not at all the intent, but the number
of emails and threads which I am skipping on xml-dev seems to be growing
exponentialy these days.
Eric,
I have enjoyed many of your contributions to discussion on this list. It seems to me a healthy thing that the diversity of discussion on the list is growing. That, at least to my mind, is an indication that XML is being applied in a growing range of uses and is coming to the attention of a more diverse group of people.
Another factor is that simply to survive in a field that is exploding with new specfications we are all overtly or more subtly become specialists. I haven't yet decided whether to specialise in the left or the right angled bracket. :)
More seriously, it is simply a reflection of how rapidly growing fields evolve. The first pioneers understand "everything" about the field early on. As the amount of knowledge explodes no one person can keep up and everybody finds ways to cope.
I remember one topic that interested me a number of years back. For a year, maybe two, I knew everybody in the world who was working on the topic. Then it just became impossible to keep up. Everybody specialised. And that subtle, congenial pioneering feeling was, over a period of time, lost. It just happens that the same phenomenon is happening in and around XML.
I do not want to give any judgment on the quality on these mails (this
would be too personal and subjective) but I am primarly interested in
core XML technologies (maybe I should call this hardcore or extreme XML)
Now that could be an interesting discussion. Just what are the "core" XML technologies. But I suspect you want something more precise, more technical, less philosophical.
and not that much in specific applications (such as Web Services to name
one) nor phylosophical or business discussions (I have nothing against
phylosophers nor businessmen and have even some specimens in my family
but just don't understand them).
Think how your life could be enriched if you did. :)
I am longing for a list rich of actual angle brackets, dedicated to
technical discussions (such as the xml-dev which has given birth to SAX
and RDDL, discussed pro and cons of schema languages or XUpdate
syntaxes, used to help the newbies, ...).
I wonder if you are wearing a pair of rose-tinted XML spectacles. The world, including the XML world is moving on. That doesn't exclude useful discussion on this list but with a more .... not sure of the term ... "corporate"? .... W3C a public mailing list seems, to me at least, unlikely to keep that unique feel that this list had a couple of years ago.
The point of this email is just to try to understand if xml-dev is such
a list (and then the mails and theads I am skipping are more or less out
of topic) or if I need to search another place (which may eventually
still need to be created)!
The XML world is changing. The time of the "XML generalist" has begun to pass. It probably hasn't quite disappeared yet. Hopefully this list won't split. The diversity of inputs is fascinating, if sometimes a little provocative.
If you have topics that you think need discussed then add that to the mix. I am sure we have things to learn from your ideas.
Andrew Watt
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