Re: Is XML getting too hard? (was: Re: More on Namespaces...)

Sean Mc grath (digitome@iol.ie)
Mon, 17 Aug 1998 20:05:49 +0100

>Simon St.Laurent writes:
>
> > Still, could somebody slow this stuff down so that XML can have a
> > tiny chance to grow? We're not even at the first round of browser
> > implementations and already it looks like XML is attempting
> > self-immolation at the shrine of complexity. The specs are doing
> > too many things in too many places.
>
[David Megginson]
>This is progress: it took SGML over a decade to get this complicated.
>
:=)

I share Simon St. Laurents concern that namespaces, schemas etc. are
getting rather hairy. I think there is a possibility that the
sleek Dolphin that is XML might begin to morph into a Duck Billed
Platypus.

XML came about in a remarkably short period of time and yet exhibits
substantial "beauty" in its simplicity. The reason for this goes deeper
than the fact that some great minds designed it -- XML is the result of
over a *decade* of experience with SGML. Some good things in SGML were
dropped, some good things were retained, but all the while, the decisions
were based on rubber-on-the-road *experience*.

By contast, namespaces, schemas etc. are very, very new to SGML/XML.
There is no decade of directly relevant, collective wisdom on which
the great minds designing them can draw.

This makes me wonder which is best to do. Standardise asap or
create "exposure drafts" first.

What is mean is : create "exposure drafts" for difficult areas
with a timescale for comments of, say, 1 year. Let implementors
create trial implementations, lobby for changes, based on these
and feed back information about what works and what doesn't.
>From there, create the recommendations.

Just a thought.
Sean Mc Grath
http://www.digitome.com/sean.htm
+353 96 47391

"There are three types of people in the world - those who can
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