Re: Next steps for the ARIA syntax discussion

There is, btw, an XML Data Model: http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath-datamodel/
All the best, Ashok


Elliotte Harold wrote:
>
> Mark Birbeck wrote:
>
>> The first thing I would do is prise apart the syntax and the infoset.
>> I don't see any reason why the underlying representation of a DOM
>> can't be taken as given, even if we fiddle around to remove the need
>> for prefix-explosion in the mark-up.
>>
>
> Cart: let me just attach you to the front of the horse here.
>
> Syntax is the only thing we have. Syntax is the only thing XML brings 
> to the table. There is no common data model for XML, and fundamentally 
> there can't be one. Syntax is interoperable across domains, operating 
> systems, organizations, and countries. Data models don't usually 
> survive the transition from one application to the next, much less the 
> transition from one computer to another, or one organization to another.
>
> And of all the things XML has brought to the table, about the only one 
> I can think of that is worse than namespaces is DOM. It's ugly, 
> inconsistent, memory-intensive, slow, thoroughly despised by users, 
> and frankly just hideous.
>
> For a spec designed for long-term storage and wire transport, any 
> object model is a non-starter. It is flat-out impossible to put 
> objects on the wire. Serialized objects are an oxymoron, a 
> self-contradicting fantasy.  They are the perpetual motion machine of 
> computing. There's a reason object serialization schemes have failed 
> time and again, and it's not just because we haven't invented the 
> right one yet. Defining XML in terms of any object model would not 
> just be a bad idea. It would be impossible.
>
> (This is not to the say, by the way, that there might not be better 
> syntaxes than the one we've labeled XML. There are almost certainly 
> are. But any such improved syntax would have to be just that: syntax, 
> not an object model.)
>
> XML did prise apart syntax and the infoset. That's was one of its most 
> significant innovations, perhaps its most significant. The infoset is 
> not a core feature of XML. It is simply one understanding of an actual 
> XML document, not the understanding of a document. The infoset may or 
> may not be useful in any given application and developers are free to 
> use it or not as they see fit. The genius of XML was precisely in 
> defining an interoperable syntax while allowing many different models 
> of that syntax. To define a single model while allowing many different 
> syntaxes is precisely the opposite of what XML is about, and why XML 
> has succeeded.
>

Received on Wednesday, 4 June 2008 13:31:59 UTC