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"Danny Ayers" <danny666@virgilio.it> wrote in message
BKELLDAGKABIOCHDFDBPGEJGDEAA.danny666@virgilio.it">news:BKELLDAGKABIOCHDFDBPGEJGDEAA.danny666@virgilio.it...
> Q: How do people learn markup?
> A: 'View Source'.
>
> This notion is one of the big guns that gets wheeled out in many
> permathreads - 'binary XML', 'RDF, bad' perhaps even 'XML Schema, too
> complicated'. To a lot of people it's the show stopper, the argument that
> can never be defeated. Not being able to view source is the reason format
X
> died; being able to view source is the reason for format Y's success.
>
> But I'm beginning to wonder if this argument really holds water any more.
I agree, that taken out of context this principle can be misleading:
- It is incorrect to expect to be able to learn *only* by reading
source code.
- Source code doesn't help if you don't know the basics of the
programming language.
When one is aware of these threats and avoids them viewing available source
can be very useful for:
- learning (from both good and bad code)
- re-using
The ability to provide the "View Source" feature is one of the main
requirements/definitions of open-source software.
Because available source code can be such a powerful tool it is a common
practice that vendours protect their products with software licenses that
explicitly prohibit any disassembling/reverse engineering.
=====
Cheers,
Dimitre Novatchev.
http://fxsl.sourceforge.net/ -- the home of FXSL
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