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** Reply to message from John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com> on Mon, 11 Nov
2002 12:39:28 -0500 (EST)
> > For the 80/20 things that most users need, W3C XML Schema is no harder
> > to teach than DTDs, if you are using a decent WYSIWYG Schema editor like
> > XML Authority or XML Spy. Let's get away from the olde world charm of
> > fireside discussions over port debating which schema language is easiest
> > to write and maintain using vi or Notepad. The world has moved on.
>
> XML 1.0, goal 9 (reaffirmed in the XML 1.1 draft):
>
> XML shall be easy to create.
>
> That doesn't say "XML shall be easy to create with buggy, expensive,
> and proprietary tools", y'know.
It isn't easy to create with text editors, so you failed on goal 9. :-) Yeah,
yeah, you *can* create it with text editors, and Emacs can do a better job than
vi or Notepad, but don't give me this old line about viewing the source being
the only true and pure way to do things. It's fine for xml-dev readers, the
cogniscenti, but in terms of empowering more of the world to contribute to the
development of schemas, it's a complete failure. It only reinforces the woeful
trend for more and more of the important technical work of this world being done
by fewer and fewer people. I'm not keen on social disasters like that. It's OK
to have experts around to help with the tricky problems when they happen. It
doesn't mean that everyone needs to work with it that way.
Cheers,
Tony.
====
Anthony B. Coates, Information & Software Architect
mailto:abcoates@TheOffice.net
MDDL Editor (Market Data Definition Language)
http://www.mddl.org/
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