RE: [xml-dev] Transformative Programming: Flow-based, functional,and mor

[David Lee <dlee@calldei.com>]

> But there can be situations (cooperating with
> natural enemies) where more explicit standards keep people from tearing
> at each other's throats.

There are certainly situations where the "natural enemies" can't imagine 
doing it any other way.
-----------------

In my experience ... (limited to "My World") ...
there are rarely "enemies" per-se but rather the different "partners" in the equation literally live in different
time and space.   Two way communication is frequently impossible.   For example the software was written 5 years ago,
and the people who wrote it are long gone, or its already embedded in so many systems it cant be changed.
Or the organizations are so well ... organizations ... that you can't really talk to the people  in charge of the software even if they wanted to talk to you,  or even if you *could* talk to them they have no authority on their own to make significant changes.   This is the reality I am used to dealing with.  It's not enemies, but it's the natural state of business or government we need to work with, or die trying.   

Try calling up Google and asking them if only they would change their Map API it would be so much easier.

Try having a conversation with AWS asking them if you could pass a slight variant to Cloud Formation templates.

Try calling up "The FDA" and asking if they would perhaps accept a vendor specific change to HL7 ...

Try even calling up your business partner at "Corporation X" and asking for the "IT Department" and seeing if they might please change a field in the data they are sending you to something more reasonable.

Try telling your contracted business partner that already agreed to a fixed price implementation that you want to send a different variant of the data and would they please process it and send a "wafer thin" change back to you, without renegotiating a new rate.


For *me* schemas help solve the problem of *inherent inability* to communicate over time, space, organization and contractual boundaries that *preexist*.  It makes life easier for everyone involved where otherwise it would be literally impossible to communicate.

-David