Re: "Separation of Content from Presentation"

In a message dated 20/08/2002 18:33:35 GMT Daylight Time, 
simonstl@simonstl.com writes:


> I have to say that I'm deeply deeply disappointed by the "generic XML
> considered harmful" bogosity that seems endemic on this list.  

Simon,

An interesting aspect of the bogosity, if I interpret your neologism 
correctly, is that both Tim ("raw XML") and Kynn ("arbitrary XML") avoid 
explicitly saying "Generic SGML/XML on the Web is harmful".

Since the XML 1.0 Rec states, as I mentioned earlier, "The Extensible Markup 
Language (XML) is a subset of SGML that is completely described in this 
document. Its goal is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and 
processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML." one can see 
why they carefully steer away from the term "generic" XML.

It seems to me much healthier to know if Tim, Kynn and others actually hold 
that statement in the XML 1.0 REC (2nd Edition) to be false. In other words 
not only are the goal posts being moved but the goals too. :)

Interestingly, comparing the February 1998 edition and the October 2000 
version shows that the second sentence in the quote above was inserted 
between editions. I wonder who did that.

Of course the added sentence is consistent, at least in my reading, with Goal 
1. in Chapter 1.1 of both versions of the XML 1.0 REC. If that goal of XML 
1.0 is being dumped via the back door then I think the XML community should 
be aware of that. If that's not what Tim and Kynn are suggesting it would be 
useful if both corrected the impressions they have given up to this point.

Andrew Watt