RE: [xml-dev] Should XML Professionals Be Programmers?

["Len Bullard" <Len.Bullard@ses-i.com>]

I agree, John.  And a very productive one.

They may not need to program in other languages but it is helpful.  If
someone can't read a DTD to some level of proficiency, I have some
qualms about their skill set given an environment where tagging in a
DTD-enabled editor is not enough to solve problems.  Sometimes the task
is proving where a problem originates; otherwise, one is solving the
wrong problem.  The same is true of the XSL.

An "XML guru" came to me one day and pointed out that half of a document
was missing.   I asked if he had inspected the file.  He asked me why he
should do that, it was missing.  What was missing was a right quotation
mark.  The XML editor told him the file wasn't XML.  An "XML guru" that
doesn't know what that means can't go to the next task because they
simply don't know what that error means.  A competent XML skilled
individual knows that in most cases, Draco has struck and they start
looking for a syntax error.

On the other hand, if one finds a fully-qualified pathname in an ENTITY
attribute, one might look elsewhere.   If one is given a document full
of empty ENTITY attributes, one might look elsewhere.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan@ccil.org] On Behalf Of John Cowan
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 10:58 AM
To: Michael Kay
Cc: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Should XML Professionals Be Programmers?

Note to Len:  Writing and debugging XSLT *is* programming.  Anyone who
can learn to program in XSLT can learn to program in any other language.