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   RE: [xml-dev] Keeping ISO 8879 Alive (was RE: [xml-dev] Markup perspecti

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Take it any way you want; killing off SGML is a death 
sentence for the freedom to develop markup according 
to what is needed over what one thinks is needed.  It 
is not a matter of moving beyond roots.  That we 
will do and have done.  It is matter of insisting 
on coherent specifications under the aegis of 
powerful standards, and of balancing the powers that 
produce these such that a radical fundamentalism 
doesn't engage a positive relativism in such a way 
as to leave us playing Highlander games.

It is political.  It is social.  These things count. 
Elegant programming alone won't make it happen.  We 
aren't rubber ducks in a bathtub.  SGML is a living 
standard still in use, still in play.  While that 
can be an uncomfortable fact for those who want 
one and only one organization and group to control 
XML development, for the rest, it is the key to 
keeping options open, choices available, a different 
court to plead a case if one court becomes too overloaded 
with special interests.  One doesn't solve polarities; 
one manages them.

Ummm... I like the infoset, DOM, and even namespaces 
when applied sensibly.  They get me cheap interoperable 
tools that I didn't have when all I had was a parser, 
an ASCII editor, and a stylesheet compiler.  I don't 
want to see the tools go away at all.  I want the tool 
to be adaptible to the needs of the humans; not make 
the humans adapt to the needs of the tools.  We 
need more markup specialists because they are 
the people who can spend the time in the committees 
grinding on a data definition that people will use. 
We also need (and the SGML experience made this 
very plain too) programmers with the savvy to 
interpret what comes out of committee and into code.  

XML is the bridge between the worlds. 
No one should claim primacy over the bridge or 
soon they will have to put up guards on both 
ends, and the walk to freedom will be a prisoner 
exchange.  If we are going to that, I'd just 
as soon go back to gigging in bars for a living.
I've already done too much time in the short 
sword wars.   

"The top must listen to the bottom.  Not having 
memory is how we keep getting into these messes."

Col. David Hackworth, commenting at a book signing 
on how Vietnam became a quagmire.

len


From: Mike Champion [mailto:mc@xegesis.org]

8/2/2002 9:48:40 AM, "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com> wrote:


>Keep ISO 8879 alive.  It is ISO that guarantees that markup 
>is the property of the commons. 

I'm not sure I agree with Len's characterization of the W3C or 
the intelligence quotient of those who think that XML should 
move beyond its SGML roots <grin>, but I do agree with the importance
of keeping ISO 8879 alive.  




 

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