[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
> Uche Ogbuji wrote:
>
> > >
> > > <div id="year"><p>Years in the Christian calender, to which 2000 is
> > > added</p></div>
> >
> > I see no reason why the exact same provision cannot be made in the case of
> >
> > <date>2002-08-06</date>
> >
> > In the schema, you can say:
> >
> > "A date formatted as specified in ISO-8601"
>
> yup. but this value _is_ tagged, it's not just a string.
"Just a string" is the heart of this entire argument, and not a given premise.
In the end, if it can be expressed in XML, it is "just a string". The magic
is in the interpretation, and as long as you have the full tools for
interpretation, I don't see how gung-ho tagging is any less ambiguous, or more
valuable in any other respect, than the use of untagged content. The tags can
themselves be the full tools for interpretaion, but in this thread we are
looking at cases where this is not necessary, because of convention. Geospace
and dates are the example.
> > I also don't see any reduction in abiguity. You have explicitly put into
> the
> > instance data that is well-documented in ISO-8601. You've only moved the
> > authority, and I personally prefer the "YYY-MM-DD" form because it leaves
> the
> > authority where it belongs.
> >
> > > If it didn't reduce ambiguity _some_ then there would hardly be a need
> for
> > > XML, or SGML for that matter.
> >
> > Can you justify this statement? Seems a leap to me.
>
> well, with
>
> <date>
> <month>02</month>
> <day>03</day>
> <year>2004</year>
> </date>
>
> if you can understand english and what a date is, and what tags mean, then
> you ought understand this date in a totally unambiguous fashion. Contrast:
>
> <date>2004-02-03</date>
>
> Now, I'd _assume_ that these dates are the same, but how can you be totally
> sure? There is _some_ ambiguity, unless you read some _external_
> documentation.
>
> Besides the vast majority of Americans write:
>
> <date>02-03-2004</date>
>
> and so when you have different specs that start mixing the order of years,
> months, days it _is_ ambiguous. If you write out the date as is often seen
> in legal documents it is the equivalent of the marked up version:
No. It is not the slightest bit ambiguous because the schema disambiguates
it. Your example also needs a schema to disambiguate it (as Joe pointed out,
you don't state whether it's CE or BCE), so I still don't consider it less
ambiguous.
I think Joe made a killer point with his mention that you probably don't write
<quantity><hundreds>1</hundreds><tens>4</tens><ones>4</ones></quantity>
Which I think is the logical conclusion of your position. After all,
<quantity>144</quantity> could be in octal, hex, or any numerical base above
5, no?
--
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/libra
ry/x-jclark.html
Python and XML development using 4Suite, Part 3: 4RDF -
http://www-105.ibm.com/developerworks/education.nsf/xml-onlinecourse-bytitle/8A
1EA5A2CF4621C386256BBB006F4CEC
|
