RE: [xml-dev] Fixing what's broke

[Philip Fennell <Philip.Fennell@marklogic.com>]

Stephen wrote:

> But hasn't HTML succeeded even more so than XML? 
> And hasn't that partly been down to it making assumptions 
> about what 'everyone understands'?

You make a convincing argument from the point of view of the visual representation on mark-up in a browser. If there are missing end tags then a browser will, more than likely, display something that a human can decipher reasonably quickly. However, for data this is less likely to work. For a start, financial reporting and transactions would suffer greatly under a scheme that permitted "making assumptions about what 'everyone understands'".


Regards

Philip Fennell
Consultant
MarkLogic Corporation




-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Green [mailto:stephengreenubl@gmail.com] 
Sent: 10 December, 2010 9:26 AM
To: Ramkumar Menon
Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Fixing what's broke

> May I ask if the success of XML is attributed to its verbosity?
>
> Introducing terse but complex syntax like skipping/stripping end tags sound
> like 're-engineering' a traffic junction to have no lights and assuming
> everyone understands when to stop/move.
> You save on traffic lights, but your traffic slows down. We can always point
> people to a detailed manual instructing how to operate, but yeah, how many
> humans do that diligently.

But hasn't HTML succeeded even more so than XML? And hasn't that partly
been down to it making assumptions about what 'everyone understands'?
So maybe XML would be even more successful - and, more on topic, get more
take-up on the Web - if it became more like HTML which by and large would
mean relaxing a lot of things.

I'm interested to see how something like HTML5 microdata will compare with XML.

----
Stephen D Green



On 9 December 2010 22:25, Ramkumar Menon <ramkumar.menon@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey Gurus,
>
> Let me put the question other way around.
> May I ask if the success of XML is attributed to its verbosity?
>
> Introducing terse but complex syntax like skipping/stripping end tags sound
> like 're-engineering' a traffic junction to have no lights and assuming
> everyone understands when to stop/move.
> You save on traffic lights, but your traffic slows down. We can always point
> people to a detailed manual instructing how to operate, but yeah, how many
> humans do that diligently.
> XML is for the general public. Let the humans do their job, and the parsers
> theirs.
>
>
> Ram
>
> 1. Tools help in minimizing the time required to crank out such verbose
> data. This has matured over the last few years.
> 2. Well designed and written XML is not visually challenging.
> 3. Equating terseness and simplicity is tricky.
> 4. In-memory representations can represent the same data in a more terse
> form Binary, Blah and what not!
> 5. With such a broad audience for its consumption, any new NextXML will
> bloat up gradually with requests and requirements.
> 6. Storage is getting cheaper [or am I dreaming?]. Let those tags come in!
> 7. [Joke] It depends on how you look at it. [Imagine yourself wearing "Red"
> lens glasses and staring at a "Green" light at a traffic junction!. Honk!
> Honk! behind you.]
>
>
>
> On 12/9/2010 12:22 PM, Pete Cordell wrote:
>>
>> Original Message From: "Liam R E Quin"
>>>>
>>>> So I'd suggest doing something like:
>>>>
>>>> <Book:Book>
>>>> <Book:Author>John Grisham</>
>>>> <Book:Title>The Case of the Hidden Claw</>
>>>> </Book:Book>
>>>
>>> Maybe I wasn't clear. Suppose I now write,
>>> <Book:Book>
>>> <Book:Title>John Grisham</>
>>> <Book:Author>The Case of the Hidden Claw</>
>>> </Book:Book>
>>>
>>> How are you going to detect my error?
>>
>> I'll confess it did take me a long tome to spot the error.  However, I
>> tend to use Visual Studio to edit XML files.  I imagine its at the bottom of
>> the food chain, but it does automatically put in the end tag so I'm not sure
>> I would have spotted the error from that.
>>
>> I would also like to believe that my schema would point the error out to
>> me. Please don't go disillusioning me about that :-)
>>
>> Pete Cordell
>> Codalogic Ltd
>> Interface XML to C++ the easy way using C++ XML
>> data binding to convert XSD schemas to C++ classes.
>> Visit http://codalogic.com/lmx/ or http://www.xml2cpp.com
>> for more info
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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