Web Architecture

Thomas B. Passin tpassin at idsonline.com
Tue Nov 30 07:26:20 GMT 1999


From: Clark C. Evans <clark.evans at manhattanproject.com>

>>... And further, that having a single
> > low level data model i.e. SML is the "Good Thing". It is almost
> > the same story as that of Copernicus and Ptolemy, and we know who
> > got that right.
>
> Robert,
>
> Could you dive in two further detail here... this last
> part went over my head a bit.
>
> ;) Clark
>

Copernicus published a massive book advocating that all the planets,
including the Earth, traveled around the sun.  The previous gold standard,
Ptolemy's, had everything going around the earth with complex
circles-on-circles to make the orbits look more or less right.  It's
interesting, in the context of SML, that Copernicus actually came up with a
MORE complex system with MORE circles-on-circles, and it wasn't really more
accurate either.  The book was unreadable, and only Kepler was interested.
Without him, it wouldn't have gone anywhere.  Kepler got rid of the
complexity, discovered elliptical orbits, and even got better predictions.

Judging from some of the posts, maybe their authors think that the  XML WG
is like Copernicus and that Don, with SML, is more like Kepler???

<sorry reason="off topic"/>

Tom Passin


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