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Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info
From: |
Tom Lord |
Subject: |
Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info |
Date: |
Tue, 16 Sep 2003 17:29:30 -0700 (PDT) |
> From: Colin Walters <address@hidden>
> On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 19:09, Tom Lord wrote:
> > Are you really at a loss to find many of the available critiques of
> > XML?
> Oh there are plenty - but I don't think there are any that hold any
> water.
heh.
> Let's take your documentation format, for instance.
> 1) How do you specify what character set it's in?
That's not an issue for this format, at the moment.
> XML solves this problem; XML documents declare the character set
> in use at the top of the document, and default to UTF-8 (which
> is well-known since it's a standard).
This is hardly an excuse for the entire mess that is XML.
> 2) How can you specify characters outside the range of what you're able
> to type?
> XML solves this problem using entities. This is standardized, and all
> XML parsers grok them.
Probably -- but I have far less confidence that all - or even _any_ -
XML parsers actually implement XML.
> 3) How can I verify the structure of the document?
> XML solves this with XML Schemas and DTDs.
It's funny you should say that. Would you care to point out a Schema
validator with a correct regexp matcher?
And that cuts deep. Because as these things are deployed with
incorrect matchers -- what's the consequence? It's analogous to the
way that HTML parsers have to put up with so much bogus HTML -- only,
wasn't XML supposed to fix that very problem?
Moreover, the entire idea of a declarative validator is entirely
suspect. The complexity of implementation of such a validator is
right up there with a programmatic validator, the latter of which
would permit more flexible and more useful validation specs.
> And moreover, there are *tons* of tools to transform XML documents to
> other formats. Transforming your nonstandard ".doc" format involves
> telling people "Oh, you have to get my scheme implementation, and then
> this software..."...
This is so extraordinarily far off-topic and non-responsive and
straw-mannish that it's remarkable. Have I ever _once_ said that,
instead of XML, people should be embracing my ".doc" format? Even
_once_? What the hell are you talking about?
For various pragmatic reasons, my .doc format is currently the right
thing to be using in software that I maintain and distribute. My .doc
format exhibits some design ideas that I think are good ideas in a doc
format, especially for technical documentation, especially of C code.
I think those are about the strongest claims I've made.
> These three are just a few examples of Real Problems that XML solves.
Sorry, but those are not Real Problems except in the
castles-in-the-sky imaginations of W3C. Nor are the purported
solutions widely and verifiably implemented with accuracy -- which
just creates a whole new set of problems.
-t
- [OT] XML foo (was Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info), (continued)
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, John Goerzen, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Tom Lord, 2003/09/16
- [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Mark A. Flacy, 2003/09/17
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, MJ Ray, 2003/09/17
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Bruce Stephens, 2003/09/17
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Miles Bader, 2003/09/17
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Colin Walters, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info,
Tom Lord <=
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Robert Collins, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Tupshin Harper, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Colin Walters, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Andrew Suffield, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Florian Weimer, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Zack Brown, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Tom Lord, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Denys Duchier, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Zack Brown, 2003/09/16
- Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: documentation as info, Andrew Suffield, 2003/09/16