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

[Uche Ogbuji <uche@ogbuji.net>]

On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:00 AM, Timothy W. Cook <tim@mlhim.org> wrote:

On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Uche Ogbuji <uche@ogbuji.net> wrote:
...
> Although I'd never design XML like that. What on earth is wrong with the
> following?
>
>>
>> <person>
>>    <employer>
>>        <name>Megaco</name>
>>    </employer>
>>    <name>Fred Blogs</name>
>> <person>
>
>
> That's just as easy to process, and has the bonus of being easier to read.
>

Now, send that to someone else.

I do. Almost every day. I have done for some 15 years.

 

 Which of the several definitions of
'person' and 'employer' would you expect them to use?

Whichever one they need.

 

Your XML file has no semantic context.

What does that mean?

 

Therefore they are free to
interpret it as they wish, not necessarily how you meant it.

That doesn't matter to me. What matters is that we get work done. The idea that anyone will ever interpret any message I send, in any format, as I wish them to interpret it is utter hubris.

You said XML works fine for your little corner. Cool. XML with no namespaces works fine for my little corner.

--

Uche Ogbuji                                       http://uche.ogbuji.net
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