Re: [xml-dev] The triples datamodel -- was Re: [xml-dev] SemanticWeb permathread, iteration n+1

[Henrik Martensson <henrik.martensson@bostream.nu>]

On Fri, 2004-06-11 at 13:02, John Cowan wrote:
> Henrik Martensson scripsit:
> 
> > It should also figure out that since I am Swedish, it is
> > likely that I do not want to be called by my first name, but by my
> > middle one. 
> 
> Interesting.  This is really true in general?  How did it come to be so?

I have no idea. I was just born into it. :-)

Seriously, there are exceptions of course, but in general, in Sweden,
the middle name is the first one, and vice versa. (Now I feel
confused...)

> 
> > In one case I was involved in, an author wrote his own DTD with more
> > than 200 elements, and refused to use anything else. Of course, it
> > wasn't possible to support his private DTD in all processing
> > applications in the company, or even build a filter system just for him,
> 
> If he was really committed to it, then you have to ask if he's worth
> more to the company dead or alive.  :-)  If the latter, then XSLT is
> your friend.

Well, we definitely wanted him dead at the time. Today, I can at least
appreciate his dedication to a cause he believed in.

Part of the problem was that despite the number of elements in his DTD,
there were serious holes in the model he used. Some things that were
very important, could not be marked up.

> 
> > My experience is that well over two thirds of all markup change requests
> > in corporate projects are unnecessary. The desired functionality can be
> > implemented much more cheaply and efficiently without changing the
> > markup. In many cases, the functionality already exists, it is just that
> > the users get no training, so they do not know about it.
> 
> Well, of course that's a disaster, and companies that live or die by
> documentation will eventually die if they don't fix it.  But most
> companies could care less about documentation -- it's a cost center --
> and instead train their sheeplike users not to expect -- demand -- it.

True. They even turn poor documentation into a source of revenue by
selling support services that would not be necessary if the
documentation was worth the paper it isn't printed on nowadays. :-(

/Henrik