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At 11:58 AM 8/3/2002 -0400, Mike Champion wrote:
>[Sorry, but I love the parallel with A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ:
>Uncontrolled technology leads to a Flame Deluge, followed by a
>Great Simplification, with the Memorabilia of the markup age
>preserved in the Abbey of St. Laurent in trust for a future
>era that can appreciate it ... which will in turn pervert
>that knowledge, leading to another uncontrolled
>technology boom, leading to yet another Flame Deluge ...
>Sic transit XML. <sickly grin> ]
Sic transit gloria mundi. Fortunately (or not), I rarely write down my
grocery lists.
>So far, the only consensus of the smaller groups I've seen is that XML (in
>all its monumental complexity) sucks. Whenever they try to figure out what
>to do about it, they immediately fragment into those who want to
>recreate a "W3C" and do it over again, those who want to find a proper subset
>of the XML specs and promote them, those who want to fight guerilla wars
>without any formal organization or ties to XML, those who want to emigrate
>back to SGML, etc.
Yep. That's a natural process, messy as always. My suspicion is that
sooner or later something will emerge and people will be ready for it. I
expect it'll be a few years coming, and in the meantime it's best to simply
speak frankly. The more people hear about problems and alternative
solutions, the more likely I think they'll be to consider the problems
themselves. That may make me Cassandra but I don't mind waiting a while
for the sparks to catch.
Simon St.Laurent
"Every day in every way I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue
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