Re: [xml-dev] The illusion of simplicity and low cost in data designand

[Dimitre Novatchev <dnovatchev@gmail.com>]

> "Open" being able to offer a choices of likely tools seems more useful
>   than identifying a single application, to me at least.
> 
>   liam

Identifying the right set of applications (toolset) to have, depends on the level of abstraction we want to work at.

I think that neither too-low level of abstraction (the swiss-army knife) or extremely-high level of abstraction (flying in a plane) are convenient in most typical cases.

I would personally prefer a car, or even better, a bike. 

Thanks,
Dimitre

On Thu, Aug 11, 2022 at 6:37 PM Liam R. E. Quin <liam@fromoldbooks.org> wrote:

On Thu, 2022-08-11 at 22:05 +0100, Michael Kay wrote:
>
> Eric Raymond's quote would be valid if the operating system
> constrained all files to be XML, say. But it's not valid for an
> operating system that can support any file format, but can also
> reliably tell the application that it's reading an XML file rather
> than a JSON file (or more precisely, one that can identity the
> application that wrote the file and tell you what claims that
> application made about the file format).
>

MacOS (the pre-Unix OS) could do this (to some extent). It was a pain,
and made the system massively less flexible than Unix. For example, if
i make an SVG file in Inkscape (to use today's application names), i
might then want to look at it in Inkview or in a Web browser, and i
might want to edit it in Oxygen XML Editor.

Putting the applications before the documents is the wrong way round.

However, i do agree that file extensions suck, and the Unix "file"
command (Ian Darwin of SoftQuad wrote the public domain version of
that) is incredibly useful but limited and not 100% reliable. Of
course, nothing is 100% reliable except the statement that noting is
100% reliable...

"Open" being able to offer a choices of likely tools seems more useful
than identifying a single application, to me at least.

liam

--
Liam Quin, https://www.delightfulcomputing.com/
Available for XML/Document/Information Architecture/XSLT/
XSL/XQuery/Web/Text Processing/A11Y training, work & consulting.
Barefoot Web-slave, antique illustrations:  http://www.fromoldbooks.org

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--

Cheers,

Dimitre Novatchev

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Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.

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To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk

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Never fight an inanimate object

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To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the

biggest mistake of all

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Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

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You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play

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To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.

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Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

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Typing monkeys will write all Shakespeare's works in 200yrs.Will they write all patents, too? :)

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Sanity is madness put to good use.

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I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.