Re: [xml-dev] RE: Make implicit structures explicit

[Frank Manola <fmanola@acm.org>]

Once again you ignore the intended use of the data (as well as some other things).  Would you claim that your addition of symbols made the order of steps in the landing procedure clearer to a human reading what you've written (as it did in the equation)?  What if there were two hundred steps in the procedure, with a scrambled order?  One of the points here is that you need to consider TO WHOM things are supposed to be "implicit" and "explicit".  In the first form of the equation, the order of evaluation is perfectly clear to the compiler (that order being explicitly specified in the language design).  

On Apr 8, 2014, at 6:32 PM, "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

> Hi Folks,
> 
> Thank you very much for your interesting responses.
> 
> Your responses have surprised me.
> 
> Consider this mathematical equation:
> 
> 	3 + 2 * 6
> 
> I think most people would agree that it is useful (even best practice) to add symbols to that equation to make explicit the order of evaluation:
> 
> 	3 + (2 * 6)
> 
> How is that different from adding symbols to make explicit the order of aircraft transitions: 
> 
> <aircraft-approach-procedure>
>    <transition step="2">Enter glide slope</transition>
>    <transition step="3">Correct for wind conditions</transition>
>    <transition step="1">Contact control tower</transition>
> </aircraft-approach-procedure>
> 
> Aren't both examples of upconversion (making implicit information explicit)? 
> 
> Isn't upconversion considered valuable? 
> 
> In fact, isn't upconversion considered to be an unstated, fundamental tenet of XML?
> 
> /Roger
> 
> 
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