groves dissent (was RE: RFC: Attributes and XML-RPC)

[Reynolds, Gregg]

Sorry, I'm afraid I do mean groves.  Your note sent me back to the DSSSL
text (don't have the Hytime text at work), and I came away from it just as
depressed as always.  I have a few basic problems with it (leaving aside the
question of English prose - don't get me started).  First, it forces
everything into a two-dimensional tree.  Then, since that doesn't really
work very well, given that attributes and children (in the ordinary,
intuitively understandable sense of these terms) are different types of
critter, it distorts this by privileging a certain "property" (read
"child"), and thereby a particular set of paths in that tree, as the real
tree.  In a word, it takes what is basically pretty simple - an attributed
tree - and turns it into something of surpassing obscurity.  But "the grove
model" isn't even necessary.  The thing it tries to model can be modeled
quite adequately without any invented terms or concepts.

I don't mean to be a spoil sport, but I do want to register a dissenting
squeek amid the celebration of groves in recent threads.  It's not intended
as a slight to those who put in such hard work in developing groves etc.,
only as a technical evaluation.  In fact I have great respect for the folks
who did the work, and for the work itself - I've learned a great deal from
it.  But not all great experiments succeed, and groves/DSSSL/Hytime have
failed in the marketplace for good reasons, and that should guide us in
building XML.

Another $0.02, that makes $0.04, I'd better shut up now.

-gregg



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steven R. Newcomb [mailto:srn at techno.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 1999 7:28 PM
> To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: RFC: Attributes and XML-RPC
> 
> 
> > I can't resist chipping in my tuppence, since this touches 
> on one of the
> > truly horrific aspects of the design of SGML and, yes, 
> Groves.  (Feel free
> > to ignore my adjectives; I'm in a hyper bolic mood.)
> 
> > > I would conclude that attributes were a truly unfortunate 
> > > decision, and we
> > 
> > Not the fact of attribution, but the horrible way in which 
> it is modeled,
> > for which we can thank SGML.  "Groves" is even more monstrous in its
> > treatment of this.
> 
> Surely you meant to say: "The *SGML Property Set* is even more
> monstrous in its treatment of this."    (:^)
> 
> The grove paradigm, when used, is always exactly as monstrous (or as
> elegant) as the property sets that are being used with it.
> 
> -Steve
> 
> --
> Steven R. Newcomb, President, TechnoTeacher, Inc.
> srn at techno.com  http://www.techno.com  ftp.techno.com
> 
> voice: +1 972 231 4098
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> 
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