Re: [xml-dev] Lessons learned from the XML experiment

["Timothy W. Cook" <tim@mlhim.org>]

Certainty and accuracy always have boundaries. The problems arise when
'people' do not communicate those boundaries and make assumptions
about meaning.

An example is the concept that is pervasive in the XML community that
element names should have meaning.  Wrong, you are guaranteed to have
semantic conflicts in interpretation.

So it is the people not XML that has problems.  Other than as I said,
the possibility that XML is too lax.  Which I am sure is one reason
why it became so popular.

People are lazy and ass-u-me too much.

--Tim



On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:19 PM, Simon St.Laurent
<simonstl@simonstl.com> wrote:
> On 11/14/13 9:07 AM, Timothy W. Cook wrote:
>>
>> I must agree with Hans-Juergen.
>>
>> I have no idea what kind of 'junk' gets passed around in the
>> publishing world.  But XML DOES provide the ability to be very
>> specific about data.  Maybe it is too forgiving and allows too much
>> optionality.
>>
>> I have no idea why all the 'yikes' comments followed his comment.
>
>
> It's easy: I've learned over the years that people who believe in certainty,
> especially those who believe that they can communicate certainty, are
> dangerous.
>
> Something goes deeply wrong when people assume that it is possible to know
> things precisely, to name things precisely, and to communicate things
> precisely.  (I'll grant that claims of precision are slightly less dangerous
> than claims of accuracy.)
>
> I sometimes call it naive positivism, but there are other philosophical
> schools that lead to the same sad place.  Computers, of course, encourage
> such delusions, but that is largely because they know so little about the
> world.
>
> Uche is extra-right about URIs, of course, a corner that painfully
> demonstrates these limitations again and again.
>
>
> Thanks,
> --
> Simon St.Laurent
> http://simonstl.com/
>
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