Re: [xml-dev] Re: Recognizing the contribution of the developers of XML

[Robin Berjon <robin.berjon@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Aug 30, 2006, at 01:21, Len Bullard wrote:
> So the complaint is that SGML has a lot of features and buying a
> fully-conforming system is expensive?  I can't quarrel with that.   
> SGML
> systems were expensive and that was the real barrier to its  
> adoption, not
> its complexity.  Does anyone really believe anymore that it was too  
> complex
> or merely too complex for a Desperate Perl Hacker?

XML is already too complex for the mythical DPH. You simply can't, no  
matter how much caffeinated cola you are force-perfused, write an XML  
parser in a single sitting — not to mention some of the other  
specifications you may want to have to make said XML usable.

So maybe it ain't the complexity, but are you sure it was the cost  
though? The two can hardly be separated so easily. If SGML had come  
about at the same time XML did, would it have failed? Or if we had  
been handed a *ML powerful enough to account for the horrid HTML  
parsing rules (which admittedly SGML can't) and CSS parsable yet  
writable would it perhaps have worked better, with a slower uptake at  
first but good going in the longer run?

Honestly, I find it really hard to tell.

> XML doesn't do what everyone wants.  Should it?  What would it  
> cost?   How much would one
> have to spend to get a system like that?

How much would it save if it were actually used on the Web? How much  
are the efficient XML endeavours costing that mightn't have happened  
had we had perhaps ever so slightly more minimisation?

Don't get me wrong, I don't intend the above to be rhetorical  
questions. It's a given that XML succeeded, I just find it difficult  
to assess the exact why of it, and can't help wondering about  
potential alternatives (then, or in another decade).

> Did the DePH vanish as a species
> or was he/she always a golem used to scare the children?

No, the DPH exists, you're talking to one. I'll have to say though,  
nowadays you'd probably be wanting to help the DJH.

-- 
Robin Berjon
    Senior Research Scientist
    Expway, http://expway.com/