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> On 8/6/02 4:06 AM, "Rick Jelliffe" <ricko@allette.com.au> wrote:
>
> > From: "Bob Hutchison" <hutch@xampl.com>
> >
> >> How many idioms do we have to support anyway?
> >
> > As many as possible, but no more.
>
> I'll try again.
>
> The idiom is 75°15'00" N 43°05'00" W
>
> The idiom is NOT <lat>75°15'00" N</lat><long>43°05'00" W</long>
>
> The idiom is NOT <lat>75.25</lat><long>43.08333333333333</long>
>
> Apparently the former is OK but the later is not.
>
> Why?
I see this as irrelevant to the discussion. For my part, I'm happy to use the
first form as example:
<location>75°15'00" N 43°05'00" W</location>
I think the point is that if one chooses to use the above in markup, that one
gets very poort support from WXS.
John Cowan illustrates how simple it would have been to have provided just as
strong support for it, without forcing people to break it into unnatural
structures.
The entire point is that XML should support the natural idiom, whatever it may
be, which is what I think Rick was saying.
> >> Is <lat>75.25</lat> so bad if we can render it as 75°15'00" N
Yes. Why do you see rendering as the only relevant issue? Don't you think
authoring and clarity of the XML itself important? I certainly do. If I mean
"foo", I don't want to be forced to have to write "bar" even though I could
transform to "bar" with some code. This is so obvious to me that I figure I
must be missing something in what you're saying.
> > I think you are thinking of documents where the data is not given as
> > part of prose or lists that we need to mark up. The issue of what is
> > the most efficient or general exchange format for data is largely irrelevant
> > to those kinds of documents. Instead, the question is how to mark up
> > the significance of the given text in efficient ways that should be useful
> > down
> > stream.
>
> I'm thinking that markup can be defined to guide the writing of future
> documents. I'm not thinking that you necessarily write a document *then*
> mark it up.
Sometimes you write a doc then mark it up, sometimes you write the markup into
the doc from scratch. Usually it's a bit of both: docuemnts meant to be
marked up start up with some markup and may gain more or less through
amendments and transformations. I don't think it's the role of XML to
determine which approach is the better. It should support what the user needs.
> > So "if we can render it" is not the point. If we already have the data in
> > that idiomatic format, then rendering it is trivial. It is a data capture
> > problem not a data rendering issue.
>
> I'm thinking that rendering might relieve some of the pressure on the
> formatting of marked up text. Maybe even add a bit of flexibility to allow
> more than one idiom to be used. Since idioms are not universal and tend to
> be contextual, maybe the document can be used in different contexts more
> easily. More, that to use in different contexts you are going to have to
> present it differently anyways. And isn't using something in different
> contexts similar to inter-operability?
"use somtheing in a context" is a pretty broad concept. In corners it would
be similar to what I call "interoperability". In some corners, it the two
concepts would be entirely alien.
The fact that idioms are not universal (that's actually somewhat implied in
the
etymology of the word "idiom") is exactly why XML should not force one
particular idiom in order to take advantage of processing technologies.
> >> While we are at it... What's the difference between what you are calling an
> >> idiom and certain other people call a data type?
> >
> > An idiom is the way a person has been habituated to work and think. A data
> > type is something a computer may find useful.
> >
> > So idioms are not data types, they are (or should be) use-cases for data
> > types.
> > Why are numbers in XML Schemas decimal and not binary? Because it would
> > be unidiomatic.
>
> So when do we stop relying on idiom and switch to markup?
I don't understand this question. It's like asking "when do we stop relying
on food and start relying on peace". Idiom and markup are very distinct
concepts. Idiom usually informs markup, and markup can, over time, influence
idiom. Markup should support whatever idioms make the user most productive.
Your question seems to imply a choice between the two, which makes no sense to
me.
> Who's idiom do we choose? All of them? Surely not.
Who is this "we"? I don't choose idiom for cartographers. I'll not let you
choose, say a prosodic idiom for my own writing. Each person or group chooses
the idiom they need. XML should support them in that choice.
--
Uche Ogbuji Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net http://4Suite.org http://fourthought.com
Track chair, XML/Web Services One Boston: http://www.xmlconference.com/
Basic XML and RDF techniques for knowledge management, Part 7 - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-think12.html
Keeping pace with James Clark - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-jclark.html
Python and XML development using 4Suite, Part 3: 4RDF - http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/xml-onlinecourse-bytitle/8A1EA5A2CF4621C386256BBB006F4CEC
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