Seeking a Dao of Groves

[uche.ogbuji at fourthought.com]

[Snip, re: groves]

> However, it has not been presented in an effective manner. Almost the
> only piece of information about it that is easy to understand for a
> programmer is Paul Prescod's tutorial[1]. I have read it, worked with
> SGML, DSSSL and similar things for years, and even so I, personally,
> did not really understand it until I got an explanation from Eliot
> Kimber at a conference.

Very intersting.  It looks as if I'll have to seek out Mr. Kimber, guru tokens 
in hand.  I, too used to throw up my hands at any mention of groves, given the 
stream of perverse jargon that seemed to accompany its discussion.  Then I 
came across Paul Prescod's motivations of the Grove model in this list, which 
whetted my appetite.  I followed his links to his tutorial, and I was hooked 
on what was obviously a simple and powerful concept at root.

The main problem was that at that point I stood in the shallow end of an 
obviously deep and rich pool, but as soon as I tried to explore further, 
following the links Paul suggested, I found myself drowning in such 
inscrutable jargon that I half expected the waters to start spouting Foucault 
and Battaille.

Either someone needs to finish the job that Paul started, and make what 
everyone insists is such a simple concept, well, simple.  We need a Richard 
Feynman of groves, and I think if Paul had more time, it would be he.  Some of 
us, like Lars and I, sense grove's latent power intuitively, but until we can 
find a guru to translate it into English (or Norsk) we're pretty much 
helpless.  Others are more practical and simply refuse to listen when someone 
insists on speaking Klingon in order to explain checkers.  Steve Newcom can 
rant all he wants about the W3C's scorn of grove holy writ, but W3C members 
are only human, and I can hardly fault them for giving the cold shoulder to 
anything they can't understand, and which no-one is making a useful effort to 
help them understand.  Of course, Eliot Kimber might have pulled as many W3C 
members as he could  aside for the Yoda session before resigning in disgust as 
Steve describes it, but the W3C has many members.  One person can hardly be 
expected to nurture them all to Jedi Knighthood.  What we need is the 
Upanishad to all the Grove Vedas, the Ecclesiastes to the Grove Deuteronomy, 
the... you get the idea (not!)  Give us the word, and we shall find our own 
path to enlightement.

And if anyone can wander a more annoying path of metaphors than I've just 
completed, I'll be the first in line to shoot him.

Boy do I need to get to bed.

-- 
Uche Ogbuji
Fourthought, Inc., IT Consultants
uche.ogbuji at fourthought.com	(970)481-0805
Software engineering, project management, Intranets and Extranets
http://Fourthought.com		http://OpenTechnology.org



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