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

[David Lee <dlee@calldei.com>]

-- Simon Says ..
>> Now _that_ is hyperbole.  It's a miracle that we ever communicated 
>> before schemas!

I honestly believe you live in a different, almost non-intersecting, universe then I.

Of course *people* have *communicated* for eons.

But for people to communicate sufficiently such that computers can then in turn communicate and exchange data
to the extent that it means the same thing to the receiving computer as it meant to the sending one is quite novel IMHO.
Moreso the more complex the idea.

XML and Schemas, IMHO, have facilitated this ability vastly.
Before then, Standards which were far less flexable, far fewer, less expressive or far more error prone were used.

I can rarely get a *person* to explain to me precisely what they mean.
Now if what we want to communicate is vague concepts and emotions we dont need computers or schemas at all.
Art does fine.  I enjoy art.  I make art.  With and without computers.   I use artistic concepts as part of my software expressions.   

I dont want art on my bill from the telephone company.

I am sorry but I am simply not convinced it's such a bad thing to write down precisely what we mean when want computers to talk to each other and make sense out of it in precisely the same way we intended.

Maybe if you explained your idea in a schema it would make sense to me :)


-David