Re: Giving up on XML

[Chris Borokowski <athloi -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

I was intrigued by this recent writing:

"The most commonly-stated reasons for adopting
structured documentation techniques include:
Automation, Reuse, Single-sourcing, Productivity gains
(resulting from the above)

However, none of these (or other) advantages require
structuring at all. Non-SGML markup languages such as
troff or TeX, and even help-authoring tools like
RoboHelp, all allow automation, reuse, and
single-sourcing.

Another purported benefit of structured authoring is
that it enforces consistency both within a document
and across a suite of related documents. Again,
structure is not necessary to gain this benefit: a
properly-designed style sheet (combined with good
old-fashioned peer pressure) is sufficient."

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-BLFrRSM1crQ40jjr38W8Q2JQtELQ?p=9

I agree on some levels: structured documents, like
virtualization, are an overhyped trend.

On another level, I find them useful in that they are
often machine parseable.

On still another level, I find the convergence of RDF
and XML interesting as XML is a structural markup,
while RDF is a value-typing/definitional markup.

Kollar made some good points about the utility of
simply a style sheet and some common sense. I think
the dumbing-down of authoring to the point where
machines could do it is a silly idea. On the other
hand, I like the thought of writing information into
an XML format, tagging it with RDF-style definitional
markup, and then putting a kind of data tainting on it
so it knows where to go, whether a public CMS or a
private intranet. Letting the machines work for us, in
other words.



--- JLShaeffer -at- aol -dot- com wrote:

> I was on a completely unrelated internet search when
> I stumbled upon this  
> article from 2001, which seems to indicate that not
> much has changed in the  
> intervening years. 
>  
>    
> Take My Advice: Don't learn XML
>  
>
_http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/xml/news/dontlearn_0701.html_
> 
>
(http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/xml/news/dontlearn_0701.html)
>  
>  
>  
> Jim Shaeffer
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ************************************** AOL now
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