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Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> To the extent that programmers have influenced the development of XML
> since version 1.0, I think the impact has been severely negative.
Bray responds"
"Too simple I think. Particularly given that almost all of the
advantages of XML over SGML were based on the principle of "leave out
everything except what programmers actually understand and use."
Too wrong headed I think. XML takes a perspective that
the only users of markup are programmers, and given
the DePH, bad ones at that. It failed that test.
SGML took a view that the end users of markup are
authors and that programmers earn a living making
the end users job simple enough to understand
and easy enough to do. It succeeded but it irritated
the programmers who are usually a bit egotistical.
The truth was somewhere in the middle but varies
by time and location: err... representation.
It might have been a good idea to get more representation
for authors on the ERB. Why not? Programmers
can't speak simply enough for the authors to understand
them and the authors can't speak precisely enough
for the programmers to take the time to listen.
Not a new story for committees afraid of Internet Time.
Skonnard writes:
"I agree with Tim here and have a hard time seeing how XML is a useful
*technology* to anyone but "programmers". Users of "markup" (who are not
devs) are simply using pre-defined vocabularies defined by programmers."
Programmers are not the only designers of
vocabularies. In fact, that was a big mistake
to assume in the SGML days and now. Subject
matter experts learned DTDs quickly. The trick
was to get them to work with the programmer such
that what was designed was implementable. Statements
like "only programmers know this stuff" is how
I know that an egotistical programmer without a
lot of experience is doing the job. Programmers
make a lot of subject matter mistakes once they
get into content markup and away from presentation
markup. They don't understand the semantics
of the terminology and usually make godawful
simplifying assumptions on the way to hardwiring
the code to their assumptions.
"Nodes is nodes, properties is properties. Tell
me who gets to names the names so we can get on
with business."
XML won't kill markup singlehandedly. It will
require the help of the hubris of certain
programmers.
len
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@textuality.com]
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