On 11/15/13 1:34 PM, Pete Cordell wrote:
> I think it needs to be recognised that for many programmers XML (and
> their ilk) are just a means to an end. The less time they can spend
> there the better. They want to make lights flash, disks spin, dialogs
> appear etc. So they figure "I need the option of different types here"
> so "I need polymorphism" and then they ask "how do I define a base class
> in XML to do polymorphism?"
Right. The Vikings wandered into Greenland, try to do what they always
did, and are sad when things don't work out.
> Plus I think coding activity (at least traditionally) is all about
> organising stuff and constraining chaos. Even on a good day, when
> you've dotted all your "I"s and crossed all your "T"s, things rarely go
> as well as you'd hope. Thus when something with a "name" parameter is
> added to a system they want to quickly answer unequivocally "which name
> is that?" and bolt it down as quickly as possible to limit the increased
> entropy. The XML practitioners approach seems to be "Yo, more names.
> Cool. We'll put you over here to start with, but we might move you later."
Yes - that's what I meant about "the data hygiene and mental hygiene of
programming are not appropriate for markup".
Thanks,
--
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/
