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

[Stephen Green <stephengreenubl@gmail.com>]

>  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'".

Well, maybe financial data would - then they can use plain old XML 1.0 -
but wherever JSON is used it might be that a relaxed XML could be
used too; if you think how JSON does without a schema and relies on
a very terse syntax while microformats (soon microdata?) can be used
for data in web pages despite the HTML being relaxed. For an amount
in a financial report (like XBRL) there is a need to explicitly state a lot
of things like how decimals places there are, what the decimal separator
is, what the rounding is, etc. For a price on a web catalogue page that
isn't so crucial perhaps. For some contact data it is less crucial still
perhaps. In these case the current use of HTML sometimes suffices
and all the more so with HTML5, I would think. Otherwise people would
never have started putting their business data on websites would they
though it probably took a while before the technology of browsers
and web servers matured enough to make this financially acceptable.

----
Stephen D Green



On 10 December 2010 09:51, Philip Fennell <Philip.Fennell@marklogic.com> wrote:
> 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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