Re: [xml-dev] Has my brain been altered by too much time spent writing X

[Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>]

On 22 Nov 2013, at 14:48, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

> Norman Gray wrote on October 18, 2013:
> 
>> if you spend a lot of time looking at XSLT, 
>> then your eyes adjust and you stop seeing 
>> the pointy brackets and end-tags; but (a) 
>> that only works if you spend a _lot_ of time 
>> with it, and (b) 'you eventually get used to it'
> 
> I read that when Norman said it back in October and it has haunted me. A little voice inside me keeps repeating:
> 
> 	Roger, you no longer see the pointy brackets
> 	and end tags. XSLT seems perfectly normal to
> 	you. Has your brain been altered by years of 
> 	writing XSLT?
> 
> Yikes! And XML Schema and Namespaces also seem perfectly normal to me. My brain breaks data up into markup grammars and categorizes data by namespaces.
> 
> What's happened to me? 
> 
> Have I "been assimilated"?
> 

Yes, of course. Just like a good pianist no longer sees individual notes and accidentals but rather harmonies and rhythmic patterns, so an expert programmer in any language is no longer distracted by the details of the notation but instead recognizes the big picture.

Nothing wrong with that, except it's important to remember other people might not be on that wavelength.

Michael Kay
Saxonica