Re: Precise Definition for Interoperability Needed (Was RE: [Minu tes] 6-7 Feb 2003 TAG ftf meeting (why XML))

My guess is that what Dan meant was that really long term persistence
is the a bility of a librarian or computer scientist to figure out what
a document meant long after the standards are gone.

XML, with its recurrent use of <> and its matching redundant
use of a tag name at beginning and end of an element, makes this
sort of rosetta stone task easier than for, say, a binary document.

Similarly, if an XML document is corrupted in the middle you can
make use of some of the rest.
There is often redundancy in the indentation vs the tag closing too.

But that's just my guess could be miles off :-)

tim

----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Lilley" <chris@w3.org>
To: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>
Cc: <www-tag@w3.org>; "'Dan Connolly'" <connolly@w3.org>
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: Precise Definition for Interoperability Needed (Was RE: [Minu
tes] 6-7 Feb 2003 TAG ftf meeting (why XML))


>
> On Friday, February 28, 2003, 7:20:14 PM, Claude wrote:
>
> BCLL> I could probably make up an explanation based
> BCLL> on the relationship of redundant parts to
> BCLL> maintenance of systems in which parts fail
> BCLL> (logistics 101: PPM and failure modes),
> BCLL> but that would have to describe
> BCLL> features of XML that enable redundancy in
> BCLL> description of content (eg, labeled type
> BCLL> by name and/or relationship by position in
> BCLL> the tree) or in the XML system itself.
> BCLL> It might be a good grad student thesis,
> BCLL> but not a short explanation.
>
> Ok so this is the "why closing tags contain the element name"
> argument. That gives me redundancy, of a sort (although content
> transfer encodings like XMill then remove that redundancy which could
> be a problem on lossy transports).
>
> Still no link with persistence - I am inclined to think that it may
> have been a conflation of two ideas, 'brain-faster-than-hands' or just
> a simple error.
>
> BCLL> The author of that statement (whoever
> BCLL> it was) should be the one to defend it; otherwise,
> BCLL> I agree with you that it should be dropped.
>
> Good.
>
> --
>  Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org
>

Received on Friday, 28 February 2003 13:57:59 UTC