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I've just come back to xml-dev after a little absence, during which
I've been busy working, watching my already small investment portfolio
shrink daily, and using my leisure hours to get a private pilot's
license instead of debating standards. I don't have any particular
position in the current debates on XForms vs. Microsoft's thingy, XML
1.1, etc. -- most of it fails my who-else-but-us-could-possibly-care
test -- but I'm delighted to see W3C committee members debating and
defending their work on XML-dev. I hope that this is a sign that the
W3C XML activity has opened up a bit in the two or three years since I
left it. Here's some advice.
To developers:
Lighten up: W3C committee work truly sucks (more than, say, sitting
in a dentist's chair), mainly because of all the bureaucratic hoops
and a tiny ratio of productive to unproductive time. These guys
deserve a lot of credit and at least a little respect for sticking
with it so long.
To W3C committee members:
Pay close attention: even though the developers sound more like
paranoid survivalists than rational beings sometimes, they're the
ones who will decide whether anyone ever cares about the standard
you've wasted so much of your life working on. It doesn't matter
that Sun, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Mrs. Fields' Cookies all sent
out press releases praising your new Recommendation. If people like
the XML devvers don't pick it up, probably no one else will.
All the best,
David
--
David Megginson, david@megginson.com, http://www.megginson.com/
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