Re: [xml-dev] What constitutes a "markup language"? What is an "informat

[Steve Newcomb <srn@coolheads.com>]

The semantics of the term "markup language" are less interesting -- and less urgent -- than the degree to which a markup language is inherently a truly-universal, tool-independent, user interface for creating and editing markup, one that remains impervious to technology change.

SGML was designed with "fitness as a human editorial interface" as a primary goal.  The act of marking up text was considered a human act, inseparable from the very human act of expressing a perspective on some text.  Was that somehow wrongheaded?  If not, what has been lost in XML?  If so, what has been gained by preferring the convenience of those who used to be called Desperate Perl Hackers?  Perhaps more to the point:  Who won?  Who lost?

Back on topic: if the purpose of XML is to mitigate the difficulty of parsing marked-up data, or if XML is primarily for machine-machine communication, then why isn't JSON a better choice than XML?

I observe that SGML remains the most commonplace and familiar of all markup languages.  Maybe its design goals were right-headed all along.  In particular, the widely-deprecated DTD convention refuses to die, probably because there remains a need for a tool-independent user interface for creating and editing markup that remains impervious to the ongoing changes in technology fashion.

On 05/05/2015 04:38 AM, HILLMAN, Tomos wrote:

That’s a part of what I was getting at.

Although to play devil’s advocate, there’s often a lot of metadata that makes not so much sense when the mark-up is removed!

From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>
Date: Friday, 1 May 2015 14:09
To: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>
Cc: "xml-dev@lists.xml.org" <xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
Subject: Re: [xml-dev] What constitutes a "markup language"? What is an "information exchange language"? When do data exchanges not exchange information?

Here’s a statement that was made:

 

XML is a markup language, JSON is not.

 

Do you agree with that statement? What exactly does the phrase “markup language” mean? 

Markup is a system of annotations applied to text. You can remove the markup and the text still makes sense.

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