Re: [xml-dev] Re: maps

["Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au>]

From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>
 
>On Sun, Aug 04, 2002 at 12:43:36PM -0400, Simon St.Laurent wrote:
> > There's no type in WXS for locations.  I can't use the built-in types to
> > express something like:
> >
> > <zoo>
> >    <name>Utica Zoo</name>
> >    <lat>75°15'00" N</lat>
> >    <long>43°05'00" W</long>
> > </zoo>
> >
>
>It sounds like you're hankering after some of the minimisation featuers
>in SGML -data tag, shortref, etc.

I think the better way to get XML Schemas support for this is

<zoo>
  <name>Utica Zoo</name>
 <lat deg="75" min="15" dir="N>75°15'00" N</lat>
 <long deg="43" min="5" dir="W" >43°05'00" W</long>
</zoo>

but then there is the issue of what unknown process performs this
annotation.
 
>XML is a way to represent structure. You aer saying that it is flawed
>because it doesn't natively understand arbitrary other ways to
>represent structure.  But that is not a goal of XML. Neither was
>terseness, of course :-)
 
No, XML is a way to represent interesting parts of information
marked up at a level of granularity. People are very loath to change
from a convenient notation to an inconvenient one.  Embedded
notations are common idiom.  The idea that "only structure
that is marked up is structure" is just another way of saying
"we don't support common idioms."

XML should be going in the opposite direction: exploring how
to support common idioms.  Vendors are already having trouble 
making tools that support XML.

Cheers
Rick