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----- Original Message -----
From: "W. E. Perry" <wperry@fiduciary.com>
> > 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.
+++1
cheers, jim fuller
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