Re: [xml-dev] RE: description of the logical or semantic structure

[Robert Koberg <rob@koberg.com>]

Michael Kay wrote:
>><Person>
>>   <Name>Peter Smith</Name>
>>   <Age>56</Age>
>></Person>
>>
>>
>>Does the markup describes  the content for example  "Peter Smith" in a
>>semantic way, that means does it describes that 
>>the content "Peter Smith" has the semantic of a name 
> 
> 
> No, the tags in your markup are arbitrary strings. It's your description of
> the markup "When I say Name, I mean personal name" that conveys the
> semantics. There's arguably a default description "When I use a tag that's
> an English word, I use it with the same meaning as that English word", but
> that's still something that's external to the XML document itself. The tags
> have no meaning without an external explanation of their intent and usage.
> Without that explanation, the above XML fragment could mean "Launch an
> attack on Cuba NOW!".

ufff...

would you say the same about phonetic sounds or alpha-numerics? If not, 
what's the difference? It did not start out codified, right? But 
something came of it...

what am I missing?

-Rob