RE: [xml-dev] DOM's javascript roots (was Re: [xml-dev] Have JDOM / XOM

["Bullard, Claude L \(Len\)" <len.bullard@intergraph.com>]

The antecedent gets lost.   Pardon if I'm picking 
the wrong one.  XML doesn't start with HTML. 
I'd be surprised if for almost all of the things listed, 
there aren't multiple parents and lineages.  For example, 
as I recall, Java starts as a language for embedded systems. 
Virtual machines start earlier than that.

Regardless of tales told of pubs in Edinburgh, the concepts 
of a stripped down SGML start apart from the web browsers 
and the web in general.  Even HTML has ancestors that predate 
Mosaic and the Web.  Had TimBL not told Connolly that HTML 
is SGML, it isn't likely those that did create the SGML 
subset would have done anything differently.  It is more 
likely browsers would have bifurcated and HTML would have 
stagnated.  At the point that XML was being created, the 
HTML WG was on a "death march to the sea".

Not that XML is perfect.  XML is probably as perfect as 
any other contender would be today given the multiple 
requirements and overloading.  It is actually a pretty 
good solution but I believe that has to do with the 
very little interest being shown in it at the time that 
it was created, not the post hoc tsunami that followed.

A history sort is useful for assigning blame, but it won't 
fix the problems or answer the question of why DOM is still 
thriving.  I suspect it is simply momentum overcoming any 
other forces applied.   DOM alternatives don't do enough 
to offset that momentum which includes the base of installed 
code both in the machines and in the human brains.

len

From: Tatu Saloranta [mailto:cowtowncoder@yahoo.com]

And of course its use for XML was an afterthought as
well: it all started with HTML.