On Fri, Aug 21, 2026, at 10:23, Wendell Piez wrote: > In view of that fact, and of the fact that (we are agreeing, I think) not to "hide" iXML but to put it in lights -- can't we consider having a universal grammars conference? Are we afraid of who might come? iXML makes formerly rather intractable things (like regularizing postal addresses or legislative history notes, where there's a common thread of intent but not necessarily a single consistent pattern of language) much easier to do; there's a significant initial cost (writing the grammar) but after that it's much more maintainable than the other available approaches would be. I think that generates a pattern of interest: this thing can make a class of problems (which I am expected to solve) significantly more tractable, I want to know more about that. Universal grammars are a couple steps back from that; there isn't any class of problem I am expected to solve that I know to benefit from applying a universal grammar. I'm a lot less interested in a discussion of universal grammars in consequence. That doesn't mean it would be a bad subject for a conference, but it's a different subject for a conference and I think the folks who've gone and built all this iXML infrastructure have a reasonable basis for making a conference they put together mostly about this thing they've built and the problems it can solve. -- Graydon
Received on Friday, 21 August 2026 15:08:35 UTC