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Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> It is like guitar tablature: easy to compose in and read for
> a guitar player, and therefore, it is useful. On the other
> hand, one never learns to read music or understand traditional
> theory, so advanced guitar students are weaned off it as
> early as possible because what they learn in guitar tablature
> doesn't transfer to other musical domains easily, so one
> remains a guitar player and does not become a musician. A
> bit over the top, but the point is valid. Ease can be
> bought at the price of general knowledge and skill.
I don't know of anyone who hasn't come to RNC without going through the XML door first.
Maybe David Tolpin? I don't think of RNC as a learning tool, like guitar chord tables, but
rather as an express train for frequent rail riders. Nevertheless, I found RNC VERY easy
to learn [1] after using RELAX NG's XML syntax for over a year.
> Addictions impose a cost on society. Compact syntaxes do
> as well. If one starts there, one ends up in the same
> cul de sac as VRML was prior to X3D if that syntax is
> used in an instance. Some VRMLers who have done quite
> a bit of VRML despise XML and aren't shy about saying it
> to the point of dissing X3D at every opportunity.
On the contrary, my addiction to RNG/RNC has had NO negative side effects on me or on
society. In fact, "I can quit anytime, I just don't want to." %^} RNG is one of those
things that has kept me a "true believer" in XML.[2] I have never dissed XML or RNG's XML
syntax because I use RNC. It makes using XML downstream easier.
XML is the river; little streams like compact syntaxes -- relatively private like Tom
Passin's nifty brief Pythonesque syntax or public like RNC -- feed into the that river by
gravity. That's why people can get along with XML: They can do there own thang and deliver
an artifact of their work in a shirt and tie -- well-formed and valid XML -- and still
get into the big party.
Mike
[1] http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/06/19/rng-compact.html
[2] http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/4658
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