Re: HTML and XML

On Feb 16, 2009, at 3:13 PM, Bijan Parsia wrote:
...
>> I'll be the first one to agree that XML is not something for  
>> everybody, but I thought we were talking about CS students?
>
> I pointed to CS students since they were more likely, I think a  
> priori, to do better. Prima facie, if they have difficulty, it's  
> unlikely that arbitrary populations will have an easy time.
...

Might I suggest that this seems to be the crux of the disagreement  
here? Julian sees XML as a tool for the professional computer  
scientist to use, applying to it the same set of professional skills  
and good practices one would expect of the professional user of any  
(other?) programming language. Bijan sees XML, in contrast, as  
something that anyone should be able to use (perhaps with a little  
practice and a quick read of a thin O'Reilly book) and certainly  
anyone should be able to quickly learn to understand. For Julian, a CS  
student is the low end of the trainee spectrum: for Bijan, a CS  
student is the high end of an arbitrary population.

Bijan can certainly claim that XML has been touted in these kind of  
terms; but then Julian might reply, not by him.

Pat



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Received on Monday, 16 February 2009 22:10:50 UTC