Re: [xml-dev] Stupid Question (was RE: [xml-dev] XML doesn't deserve its "X".)

On Tue, 2002-03-05 at 13:26, Mike Champion wrote:
> This is in the spirit of "if we were doing this all over again ..." (or
> "if we were furry little creatures eating dinosaur eggs and planning for
> the post-asteroid world ...), not a troll:  
> Why does XML carry around a label for every data value rather than 
> getting it from an out-of-band "schema" (a la EDI or
> ASN.1), but then use an out-of-band means to associate type information,
> thus necessitating the PSVI?

I'd say that such in-band labelling is really what defines markup per
se.

Not everyone likes it, of course:
"Embedded Markup Considered Harmful" Theodor Holm Nelson, 10/1997
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/w3j/s3.nelson.html

It's more a document-centric perspective than the ASN.1 example you
suggest, but it's interesting stuff.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com