Re: [xml-dev] Build applications using the "simplicity stack"

[Arjun Ray <arjun.ray@verizon.net>]

On Thu, 03 Apr 2014 09:35:06 +0100 (BST), Hans-Juergen Rennau
<hrennau@yahoo.de> wrote:

| Did you sufficiently take into consideration that XML-encoded 
| information is addressable, down to the smallest item, in a 
| unified way which could not be more concise and at the same time 
| more intuitive? 

Minus the idiocy of "XML namespaces", I have nothing against Xpath. In
fact, I'd say that xpath-based processing has been the key to whatever
success can be claimed for XML.  Not only were there other nifty ideas
where Xpath came from, but the ways to use Xpaths may not have been
exhausted yet.  

| I think that to speak about the "usefulness" of XML forgetting 
| the existence of these technologies makes little sense,

Xquery is often closer to what I need than XSLT; but generally,
anything Xpath-aware _and_ scriptable (which includes purpose-built
utilities of my own devising) is good enough as long as it gets my
data _out_ of XML.:-) 

| Little example. You have two XML files and you are interested in the
| differences. 

Ah, yes.:-)  As it happens, this was one of the use cases, years ago,
that led me to go against my better judgment and address a W3C Working
Group with a suggestion, as a (publicly invited) comment on a draft:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-xml-canonicalization-comments/2000Feb/0005.html

Despite an endorsement by someone whose opinion might have counted,

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-xml-canonicalization-comments/2000Mar/0005.html

(See also: http://www.w3.org/2000/08/lb2/)

the "idea" elicited no response at all, neither yea nor nay, from the
olympian worthies of the Working Group.  As I had expected all along,
the www-xml-canonicalization-comments list was the official place to
be ignored. 

But I wasn't blameless: maybe that was karma, as they say.  I let the
credit be given to me because, at the time, I thought that revealing
the source would have killed the proposal stone dead at once, anyway.
(Anyone who knows where Xpath came from would know where this "handy
line-breaking algorithm" came from.)  

| Can you give me examples of how this could be achieved equally easily
| after leaving XML format?

I'm a big fan of "low-tech" solutions.  Given the choice between some
Xquery-capable gizmo and plain old diff to get some one-off job done,
I prefer the situation where the latter is available.