[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
On Tuesday 18 February 2003 04:33 pm, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> >Right. That's the hard part. From what I have seen, it is very unlikely
> > that we will ever reach a situation where everyone is happy.
>
> Not usually. That is "tension" I referred to as part of the
> XML expert's problem to solve. They have to work out the
> publishing/tool/workflow tradeoffs. David Megginson refers to the
> time it takes to set this up, and he is right that it can take
> a long time. In my world, that is called the implementation phase.
Sure. I've worked in that world for a long time too... where the benefits come
after 2-5 years, but can be very substantial. It requires hard work, lot's of
planning, and a fair degree of faith.
> If style is the organizing principle, I agree. But why do that? This seems
> to be the big gain in using Office with XML: author in the style one is
> accustomed to or dealt, then export in accordance with a schema.
I think there are two big assumption here: 1) That people will use styles
(their own, or the ones they're given) accurately, and 2) that export is both
possible and that it happens. In an ideal world, both these things would
happen, but the world where this is likely to happen is a fragment of the
world at large.
Most people don't (yet) even realise there's a problem, let alone that there's
a better way of doing things.
> >This is just on the data entry side too... the rest of the process of
> >establishing side-by-side views, or formatting, or extracting summaries,
> > or building indexes, or <whatever/> still needs to be done.
>
> Yes. The buyer has to become acquainted with what is possible given
> the tradeoffs that they make for convenience, legacy, etc. vs reuse.
> XML is not a free lunch.
Right, and a lot of people don't want to pay to play.
|
