Re: [xml-dev] RE: Seduced by Markup

[Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>]

hahahaha.  I can only add that 5-7 flats or 5-7 sharps are the best key
signatures for keyboard players because they maximize the use of the
black keys.  This is simply because everybody's fingers come in five
different sizes.  The worst of all is no flats or sharps.

Actually that's a great metaphor, Len.  Why do people complain about big
key signatures?  Because they haven't learned to read the notation,
that's all.  Once they learn the music, it often turns out to be
*easier* to read *and* easier to play.  It's not very different from
parameter entities or any other macro facility.

I'll never forget a bunch of brass players ganging up on me for making
their lives difficult with lots of flats.  What can be said in such a
situation?  "Oh, I'm so sorry.  If you don't like the key signature,
please just ignore it."  I suppose Charles Ives might have said that,
and he might even have meant it, too.  He was in favor of everyone
learning to "take a good dissonance like a man" -- to hear the music of
the moment, taking from it everything human that's in it, rather than
refusing to do so because it's just not perfect enough for you.  I think
it's an important spiritual (as well as intellectual) exercise to do
that.  Fascinating, too.

Sherwin Gooch, a pioneer in digital music synthesis, memorably remarked
that he had nothing against computers composing music, as long as only
other computers would have to listen to it.

On 11/18/2013 11:06 AM, cbullard@hiwaay.net wrote:
> "So the advantage of DTDs is that they are gibberish to all?"
> 
> No.  The advantage is almost everything a human needs to read to interpret
> them is in one place.   XSD may be richer in types and a parser writer's
> wet
> dream, but as a simple human lookup, it sucks.
> 
> #IMPLIED means:  here is a hole.  Fill it or ignore it, I don't care if
> you don't and if you do, I still don't care.
> 
> In music, it is a something like "poco a poco" followed by a "caesura"
> followed by "a tempo".   The real-time interpretation is:  get your eyes
> out of the sheet music and don't take your eyes off the conductor until
> you and the choir  meet in the next measure.
> 
> The pain one endures to learn to do anything is proportional to the
> results obtained.   As someone who has to be able to read both to
> accomplish simple
> tasks such as writing FOSIs, DTDs are more appropriate by several orders
> of magnitude.  I do understand there are other applications for which that
> will not be the case.  BTW:  FOSIs are a good example of why having a
> spec that is "Just Syntax" is a good thing and a bad thing.  Take a look
> at the micro-syntax used for post-validation contributions so the PDF
> rendered from multiple small XSDs for different parts of a book can
> appear and link as if 1.0 title looks and link exactly the same despite
> one being <proceduralStep id="" and another being <checklistStep
> id=""...  Content naming is good idea until one realizes that reuse of
> little bits of data is a lot less than we once believed, aka, why
> database thinking and document design CAN result in bad data design.  It
> isn't the technology: it is the use case reality.
> 
> As for music (with nods to Dr. Newcomb), despite the limitations, I
> often compose in guitar tablature and render in *piano notation* because
> the first is native and the second is more widely spoken.  The best
> local adaptation I've seen lately was a printed score for a piece in six
> flats and a marking saying:
> 
> MODERATO (quit bitching about the key signature and just play it).
> 
> I suggest XML is like that.
> 
> len
> 
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