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

[Thomas Passin <list1@tompassin.net>]

On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 11:32 PM, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> 
wrote:

> 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:
Once again, and as always, much depends on who the receiver is and what 
the receiver expects.  If the receiver expects an ordered list, then an 
ordered list is all that is needed.  If the receiver is a person, then 
consider the case of outline editors.  The whole purpose of an outline 
editor is to make it easy to move parts of the outline into new orders, 
and no person wants to have to track the order explicitly beyond the 
visual ordering.  Let the editing program handle the numbering or the 
links, but behind the scenes.

Personally, I have set my text editor to display line numbers, for easy 
reference, and that might sound like I contradict myself.  But if I were 
to output my text file in some simple xml format, one sentence after 
another, I wouldn't bother to number them.  Let the receiving program do 
that, if needed.

Or consider what an awkward nuisance it is to order items in RDF.  Of 
course, a processor can always choose to ignore order, where present.

The "best" way may vary with receiver and application, but I would 
rarely want to bother with having numbered annotation where order were 
already built in.

Or concisely, DRY: Don't Repeat Yourself.

TomP