Re: [xml-dev] Wikipedia on XML

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

Amelia A Lewis wrote:
> This seems to be an attitude common for the HTML-centered (is it 
> appropriate to describe you so?); it seems to be the attitude of the 
> WhatWG folks as well, so far as I'm understanding those bits that 
> they've contributed to the namespaces discussion here, and that I've 
> stumbled across otherwise.
> 
> It's an odd attitude, to my mind.  MathML, SVG, [pick-your-favorite] 
> wouldn't exist unless the distributed authority mechanism (however 
> clumsy, verbose, and annoying it is) of XML namespaces had not been 
> available.  They relied on independent groups being able to build 
> momentum, first in a niche, and then more widely, at which point the 
> browser vendors acknowledged the justice of including them.

On a SXSW panel a few years ago I provoked some strange stares and 
hostile comments by saying that it was time to stop worrying about what 
some committee had decided was an appropriate vocabulary and start just 
using your own XML to share information.  I think most folks just had no 
idea what to do with it, and one guy afterward told me it was crazy.

Somehow I've wound up an HTML-centered person corrupted by the whole 
distributed authority business of XML.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/