Re: [xml-dev] Parsing XML with anything but

We need to stop wondering why people don't want to use 'our' tools and start figuring out how to reach them. �Or, if we prefer, we can spend our time on endless iterations of this thread, stewing in our own greatness and wondering why it is that people from cut-and-paste coders to well-respected consultants don't grasp the power and beauty that is the XML family of specifications.

Um, why? �I'm only being partly rhetorical here, so bear with me.... � It seems clear to me that XML et al is not going to win the middle ground of powerful _and_ easy to use. �It's not clear any tool is going to do that any time soon. �Scala is the new beloved in Silicon Valley but you pretty much have to have a solid CS background to know how to use it properly. �The designers make no apologies for that and in fact embrace it; powerful tools for people that know what they are doing isn't a horrible place to aim at. �Powerful tools for the masses results in missing fingers and trips to the emergency room.

�

That last is unfortunately a permathread here. �I should stop poking at it - the battle seems pretty much lost to me in any case, at least as far as the XML moniker goes.

Exactly; embrace the Dark side.... ;-)�

Seriously, it's good to know how a community is presenting itself and how it's perceived. �The XML world has so much history that most people here know well that it's easy to forget that most of the world has no idea about the details and doesn't care. �It won't hurt if you keep prodding us with that stick, but if you expect that to produce something revolutionary I suspect you're prodding in the wrong community. �At best it can result in incremental improvements (ie. micro XML) and that's still a good thing...