Re: [xml-dev] RE: List of differences between XML and JSON?

["G. Ken Holman" <gkholman@CraneSoftwrights.com>]

At 2015-05-02 08:52 -0400, Thomas Passin wrote:
> XML markup isn't fundamentally limited to "hasA".
The specific aspect being discussed was XML syntax.

> Consider RDF.  ... an "existential conjunctive" language, which 
> means that it can declare both isA and hasA notions.  RDF graphs can 
> be expressed with an XML syntax.  Therefore, (at least some) XML 
> languages are able to express isA.
Absolutely, yes ... I said it myself:

At 2015-05-01 17:24 -0400, G. Ken Holman wrote:
> Anyone gets to interpret "isA" any way they wish, but in the syntax 
> ... the start and end tags contain ("hasA") their descendants.
Interpretation of content is in the eye of the beholder.  Just 
because I choose to mark up text with my understanding of a semantic 
behind why I marked it up, anyone else can choose to interpret the 
markup any way they wish.

The "hasA" is inherent in the syntax.  Elements have 
attribute.  Elements have descendants.  Elements and attributes can 
have very rich labels using namespaces so as to unambiguously label 
what has what.

But XML stops there ... it is the applications conferring semantics 
on what has been marked up that adds layers of "isA" or anything else 
on the marked up content.

All power to anyone who wishes to interpret what has been marked up 
any way they want ... including the RDF semantics.

So, I believe the "isA" you have described is a property of the RDF, 
not a property of the XML that expresses the RDF.

At 2015-05-02 08:52 -0400, Thomas Passin wrote:
> No, XML expresses *relationships*, which may or may not be 
> hierarchical.  You can describe fully non-hierarchical data, such as 
> maps or graphs, with several different methods.
I disagree ... I believe it is the application interpreting the 
syntax to infer a relationship between content that has been marked 
up only with "hasA".  Even ID/IDREF is but the property of having a 
pointer ... it is up to the application to interpret what that pointer means.

. . . . . . . Ken


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