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Aaron Skonnard wrote:
> It would have been more accurate to say "markup users are simply using
> pre-defined vocabularies *implemented* by programmers."
In some limited circumstances, this is an OK way to begin mastering the
skills of markup within a given domain of expertise. This technique,
however, is never more than training wheels. Markup is a skill in its own
right, like research or expository writing, required, or at least very
handy indeed in the expert practice of an increasing number of domains.
Markup is a very different skill from programming. Like basic programming,
basic markup can be taught on simple principles, but like skilled
programmers skilled markup practitioners have refined and mastered
techniques through repeatedly confronting problems which yield to an
understanding of deep patterns.
Tim Bray eagerly addressed a question on this list yesterday because it
appealed to him as a break from the usual exegesis practiced here.
Questions of the tone, or aesthetics, of this list aside, markup is in fact
a branch of exegetical practice, which is where it differs fundamentally
from programming. At the most mundane level, programming is prescriptive
where markup is descriptive. More generally, programming is ultimately
algorithmic where markup is taxonomic. The differences in mindset are daily
on display on this list, of course. Nevertheless (with all my bias showing)
it seems to me that xml-dev is, and should be, finally about the
development of skilled XML--that is, markup--and much less about the
ancillary business of implementing appropriate algorithms for processing
the wonderful subtleties which the markup grows to describe. Not that there
is not a place (and a need!) for both here. But there are many, many other
places for programmers to whet their craft, and few if any others where the
expert practice of markup is understood as a profound skill.
Respectfully,
Walter Perry
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