Re: [xml-dev] The edge of chaos: where syntax ends and interpretation be

[Tei <oscar.vives@gmail.com>]

On 29 February 2012 15:59, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:
> Hi Folks,
>
> Edge of Chaos: a region between order and either complete randomness or chaos
> ........................................................
>
> Norman Gray wrote:
>
>    That application has almost complete freedom to
>    decide what the meaning of those bits of information is.
>
> Can different meanings be given to the same XML?
>

Yes.
The string  94455 and the number 94455 stored in a XML document can
end using the same bits.


> Is it necessary for all who consume an XML document to interpret it the same way?
>

Hu.. no?  you can have a 3D printer that use XHTML to create a
beatiful 3D tree of the relation of the DOM nodes. While a audio
renderer uses XHTML to create human language. Then you have the
average joe web client that render in a 2D canvas the information of
the XHTML.  This is desirable.


> Is a uniform, global interpretation possible?
>

No.
"To make a cake, you have to invent the universe" - Carl Sagan

If you travel in time with a computer to the year 3000 BC,  you have a
machine with 0 and 1.  But you have a problem:  0 is not invented
yet!, the 0 has not meaning yet!.  Everyone you talk to will
understand the 1, but not the 0.


> Is a uniform, global interpretation desirable?
>

Yes.  So NASA ships don't crash in mars, because some calculations in
km where speced in miles.

> Consider the creation of an XML document:
>
>      The creator sends out the XML document. Consumers receive it.
>      What responsibility does the creator have in ensuring that the
>      consumers interpret the XML in the way that the creator intended?
>

The creator and the consumer can live in totally different worlds.
Like we reading the Rosset Stone. You can't possibly imagine a link
betwen then.   But has a general rule, is jerk-ism to not create
documents that will kill the reader (malware), and not create
documents that are very long with littel or not relevant content
(spam, bad novels,  TV series like LOST withouth a rewarding end,
computer worms).

If you creates a XHTML document that crash Internet Explorer, Chrome
and Firefox, you are a asshole.

If you creates a XHTML document that frezze Internet Explorer, Chrome
and Firefox, you are a asshole.



-- 
--
ℱin del ℳensaje.