Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: T. Nelson -- Doesn't understand XML?

Author:Jacob Levy
Posted:11/10/1999; 8:20:27 AM
Topic:T. Nelson Critique of Embedded Markup
Msg #:12919 (In response to 12918)
Prev/Next:12918 / 12920

If I have an XML tag for Price, it makes no sense for you to remove that tag and replace it with Weight.

Unfortunately IMHO this argument is wrong. Nelson's point is that the semantics of the tags are external and therefore it doesnt make sense to embed them in the text stream. Your example is actually nearly perfect. Let me change it around a little bit to illustrate. Suppose you have an XML tag for Zonde, it does make perfect sense to replace it with Sin (if you're Dutch) or Waste (again, if you're dutch) or with Work Detail (if you're german) or with Sunday (if you're Swedish). The meaning of the XML fragment did not change for the person making the change, under their interpretation. The interpretation *is* external, hence it doesn't make sense to have the tags embedded.

Just my $0.02, YMMV.

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