RE: [xml-dev] Generating Complexity: <xs:any> versus assembling building

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

Complexity is not sophistication of necessity. Dazzling or simply
"blinded by the light, wrapped up like a deuce"?

In the story I wrote to describe the beginning of the web, a system was
in place that worked.  Attempting to replace it simply replaced it, or
in other words, substitute client for author and typing pool for servers
and you have the same system in a different set of clothes.  It did not
actually evolve.  It crab walked replacing the costs of a technical
writing suite with the complexities of a world wide hypermedia system.
I

n effect, it solved the wrong problem as far as the ability to solve
technical problems:  the initiatives for CALS that fed into the WWW were
not meant to solve the problems of distribution but to solve the
problems of provably correct information in mission critical
documentation.   For that reason although some technologies from the web
(say XML) have become part of military technical writing systems, the
distribution and formatting systems mostly have not.  They are not
secure and they are noisier than a shopping mall on Saturday morning.

Instead, we created an interactive brochure full of both noise and
signal in which it is difficult to know which is which.  As collateral
damage we have increased superstitious uncertainty to epidemic
proportions feeding back distractions and irritation into a user
population that has predictably become more violent and anti-social.
Your economic systems are collapsing as an indirect result.

Oopsie.  

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Costello, Roger L. [mailto:costello@mitre.org] 
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 8:24 AM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: [xml-dev] Generating Complexity: <xs:any> versus assembling
building blocks versus XQuery

Hi Folks,

I had an epiphany. 

Here is my epiphany:

Nature seeks to express greater and greater complexity. So do we.

At the heart of each of the following three things is the attempt to
enable users to express complexity:

1. The XML Schema open content (the <xs:any> element).

2. Assemble building blocks (the Lego pattern)

3. Provide users the ability to issue XQuery statements on XML
documents.

Grammar languages -- XML Schemas and RELAX NG -- are fabulous examples
of simple rules capable of generating dazzling complexity.

Wow!

Thoughts?

/Roger

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