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

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

I believe we agree.

The nature of standards is to create a Nash equilibrium 
of development and market.   It is tough to break one 
without a change in the environment or improbable luck 
with an irrational action.  Quite often, irrational 
acts change environments.  Then we call them genius.

So far, all of the alternatives have appeal for a given 
community niche.  None of them are wrong or faulty; just 
local to a language, a vendor, a cult, whatever.  The 
DOM thrives because it was first and it was seeded into 
a fast spreading virus called HTML.  On this we agree.

The other threads here that are comparing language 
alternatives are informative and that is what xml-dev 
does well.   History is good for lessons learned.  The 
two mistakes I usually make are applying old lessons without 
noticing the things to which they pertain don't exist, 
and the fallacy of reification that is so easy to 
commit when one is an analogical thinker.

Cow town?

len


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

> The antecedent gets lost.   Pardon if I'm picking 
> the wrong one.  XML doesn't start with HTML. 

No, I was not implying it did; I did say that DOM
started with HTML.

> I'd be surprised if for almost all of the things
> listed, 
> there aren't multiple parents and lineages.  For

Certainly, definitely. The examples weren't (meant to
be) exhaustive, but to give an idea why history
matters in understanding the current situation. It is
easier to accept flaws (at least by people with
pragmatic view of the world) knowing where things came
from, and with what baggage.
 
> A history sort is useful for assigning blame, but it
> won't 
> fix the problems or answer the question of why DOM
> is still 

I am not much into blaming. Living in a blame-based
(moving from a guilt-based one -- different flavours
of protestantic sub-cultures) society either makes you
adapt to it, or protest against it. I prefer the
latter group. But I do take some comfort in seeing how
and why choices/decisions were made or drifted to.

> 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.

I believe this is closest to consensus one can reach
into this particular thread. I don't think anyone
disagrees that this is a major factor. ;-)
("don't attribute to malign what can be explained by
laziness" [inertia / convenience / dont-care-fulness])

-+ Tatu +-


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