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Right but remember, if there are to be multiple users of the same
information, it is best encoded in the simpler form. Yet as Rick
Jeliffe points out today on xml.com, that can be at the cost of
revesibility (the lobster trap of conversion: the lobster can only go
in one direction even if that direction is easy).
I have to disagree with you on this point: HTML is popular because of
its definition. It is easy to remember. The selection criteria is the
hrair limit of the human brain. This affects any selector process,
sometimes known as the 'prepared mind' (why lots of little experiments
in your lab keep you sharp: you are better at making decisions in real
time because you practice making them before you have to; aka, pattern
recognition).
This is the essential art of markup design: to balance the requirements
for growth of the language in terms of reach (users) and the
completeness of information for multiple scopes of operations
(applications). There is no free semantic lunch.
len
From: Didier PH Martin [mailto:martind@netfolder.com]
In economics we have the notion of "cost of transaction", in the XML
world let's consider a "cost of usage". If a particular language
requires form me days or weeks of work because something useful can be
done and if I do not have the assurance that other people are using it,
then the "cost of usage"
is too high and the language will stay on the shelf. In, in contrast,
somebody provides a lot of interpretation tool (renderer, authoring
tool,
etc.) the language has more chances to survive and grow.
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