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You might want to look at
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/essays/paretian/pareoptimal.htm
and pay attention to the heuristics section. Equilibrium doesn't
always work to everyone's advantage.
In the Wizard of Oz (the book), the Good Witches create the tornado that
brings Dorothy to Oz because the powers of North, South, East and
West were in equilibrium and that was a rotten deal for the Munchkins
and the Winkies. Networking Dorothy's innocence to the Wizard's
secret was a very small nudge to a stable system to cause it to
restabilize into a pareto optimum for Oz for everyone except the
Witch of the West, and she was past saving.
That's what disruptive systems do. It is not that hard to use simple
services to create complex systems. It just isn't always fast.
Is an iPod simpler or more complex than the CD player on your computer?
If we simplify XML, it will get complex again. If we subset it,
it might or might not. It's a question of utility within the network.
len
From: Rick Marshall [mailto:rjm@zenucom.com]
it's a bit more complex. i've noticed that the users of simple systems
which require a lot of excess staff and extra paper and add on systems
designed by the users (read loads of spreadsheets) seem to be happier
than users of very efficient systems that do everything for them.
perhaps someone has done a study of this..
the systems that appear simple but are complex underneath and all but
run the businesses or processes are cost efficient and usually a
significant financial advantage for the corporation.
the other systems survive because so many companies a) don't know about
the latter and b) are happy to remain in a different competitive
optimisation well.
it's a paradox and as much as i dislike the salesstaff over selling the
systems, i need them to make the propects dissatisfied with the simple
system.
on this basis i'm nearly ready to argue for xml n.0 to be a simplified
xml, rather than a more complex one. more on that when i get my ideas
sorted better and have time to write the somewhat longer discourse.
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