A call for reason, --somewhat refined--

Mon Nov 29 14:18:18 GMT 1999

I should say, initially, that I share the ambition of SML, provided that
this means a simpler, no-extras, substantial and somewhat complete XML.
However, without being an XML-guru, I should point out two or three things I
think one should take into account when deciding between XML and SML.

1. No language is complete. Not even natural languages can be used to model
complex information structures. This seems to point toward empbracing SML,
since we, or so it seems, do not need the added complexity on offer by XML
(or, rather, we could come away with a simpler version of XML, namely SML).
Given that not even XML can be used to full effect, why bother with all the
extras?

2. However, without the use of attributes (one of the things that, if I
understand correctly, would disappear in SML), it seems we would miss out on
many of the features that make XML cross-referential. This is an essential
feature of modeling languages. We could of course use elements within
elements to express some advanced features, but it seems attributes and some
meta-understanding gives us a simpler tool to achieve the same thing.
Provided that we would need large and comples structures in SML to express
things we could express in a more simple fashion in XML, I can't really see
the point in changing standards.

To my understanding, SML would be well-suited for writing fairly simple
structures. Of course it is. The question, however, is if we should stick to
simplicity just because we haven't really started understanding how complex
XML can really be, just because we, at present, use XML for fairly simple
tasks. That sounds quite conservative. 

I look forward to continuing this debate. 

Kind regards

D. Dimitriadis

-----Original Message-----
From: James Robertson [mailto:jamesr at steptwo.com.au]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 1999 12:09 PM
To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: Re: A call for reason

At 16:03 29/11/1999 , Joe Lapp wrote:

>I'm learning through the grapevine that some people of influence are 
>opposed to the SML effort.

And there's some others of us who are
_obviously_ opposed to SML.

Who needs a grapevine?

(Gee, this is all wasting a lot of
bandwidth.)

J

-------------------------
James Robertson
Step Two Designs Pty Ltd
SGML, XML & HTML Consultancy
Illumination: an out-of-the-box Intranet solution

http://www.steptwo.com.au/
jamesr at steptwo.com.au

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