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> Tim Bray writes:
>
> "The general success of Web software is evidence that interoperability
> in networked information systems is best achieved by specifying
> interfaces at the level of concrete syntax rather than abstract data
> models or APIs."
Mu.
For this statement to even make sense, it would have to be possible to
specify an actual interface in terms of an abstract data model.
Here's a similar statement:
The general success of airplanes is evidence that flight is best
achieved with actual wings rather than abstract descriptions of how
the wings are structured and how they relate to the plane.
- Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@simonstl.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2003 12:52 PM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: [xml-dev] syntax, model
Just when I stop paying attention to www-tag, interesting stuff appears.
This thread in particular is worth a read:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2003Oct/thread.html#36
I'm especially fond of this (mildly edited) comment from Elliotte Rusty
Harold, which I think cuts to the heart of the matter quite beautifully.
"The problem is not that data models are bad. It's that data models are
local. My data model is not your data model, and need not be. Syntax is
exchangeable and interoperable. Data models aren't."
There's not much more I can say to that. There may be occasional
exceptions. Data model by decree works occasionally - XPath 1.0, I
think is the strongest case in that direction, though it succeeds in
large part by doing a lot with very little. Unfortunately, the genuinely
"shared" data models tend to have all the appeal of a toy that's been
fought over by screaming children yanking it away from each other.
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