- From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) <clbullar@ingr.com>
- Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 11:55:12 -0500
- To: 'Tim Bray' <tbray@textuality.com>, Michael Champion <mc@xegesis.org>
- Cc: www-tag@w3.org
Syntax works because it is the lowest level at which one can get the most agreement about two systems without constraining the rest. You aren't paying enough attention to "information system" because your definition stops at "network". XML doesn't care because syntax doesn't have to; it has no semantic. But at the end of the communication, without a shared semantic, all you are doing is mailing each other syntax. So the real work is precisely devising a means to discover, invent or otherwise share a semantic. For some that is an emergent phenomenon, for others, simply dynamic. In no case can either XML or the Web take credit. They are just bits and wire, in no way responsible for the shape of the so-called, "information space". XML isn't a miracle. It's barely a good syntax, but with enough buy in, it works. The Concorde worked, but a Cadillac in a junkyard is still scrap metal. No buyer; no sale. len From: Tim Bray [mailto:tbray@textuality.com] I wonder if you're paying close enough attention to the phrase "in networked information systems".
Received on Saturday, 25 October 2003 12:55:14 UTC