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> > What is the "cognitive style" of writing documents in XML vs.
> It's not at that level: it's about bullet-point lists, really.
Interesting topic. My team has been writing our specification documents
in XML for a couple of years now, and most actually write using the
markup directly. One oft-cited benefit is that the XML lets you "think
in outline". Of course, there is nothing preventing you from editing in
outline form with document formats that are non-XML, and conversely you
can store many non-outline document formats as XML. So I assume the
main point of discussion here would be about the difference between
hierarchy vs. list thinking.
Anyway, people who like outliners and mind maps are aware that outline
style is obviously superior :-) But maybe some semantic web people
would argue that graph style is even better. However, I think E-R
diagrams and UML diagrams are useful in very specific domains, but
quickly become overwhelming. In fact, for purposes of a presentation to
an audience of more that two people, excessive hierarchy can quickly
become overwhelming. Presentation is successful if most people in the
room can correctly recall the basic outline and order of points made by
the presenter; presentations are normally the distilled byproduct of
analytical work, not the mechanism.
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