XML Essentials page

Hi W3.org,

In search of an XML spec (to look at finicky details of what counts as
spacing) I read [0] and noticed some phrasing glitches.
[0] https://www.w3.org/standards/xml/core

The page lists its author as liam@w3.org, but apparently Liam has left,
so I'm sending to you instead.

  For any particular scenario, you might be able to come up with a
  better format, but then you would have to include costs of converting
  and processing your format, and of training, and of the XML-specific
  editing and searching tool that are now very widely available.

Read that sentence carefully and you'll notice it switches, half-way
through, between telling me the costs of my custom file format and
describing the benefits of using XML.  It could be salvaged by the
insertion of "suitable alternatives for" between "and of" and "the
XML-specific", but I suspect a freshly written sentence or two would
serve better !

  This means that every new XML document increases the value of every
  other XML document, and of every XML tool, and every new XML tool
  increases the value of every XML document and hence of every other
  tool.

The first step - document increases value of document - is not obvious
at the point where it's introduced; indeed, the principal way that each
XML document increases the value of other XML documents is via
increasing the value of the shared tools that increase the value of
those other documents.  So perhaps better to make the loop clearer:

  This means that every new XML document increases the value of every
  XML tool, and every new XML tool increases the value of every XML
  document and hence of every other tool.

or possibly start half a cycle earlier, tool => document => tool and
hence document.

It might also be worth mentioning that every new XML tool and document
increases the number of *people* familiar with XML and thereby the value
of every new XML tool and document.

	Eddy.

Received on Friday, 25 March 2022 15:28:44 UTC