Famous XML cliches

[scooterm]

Since XML has been around a while, there seem to be some popular
perceptions and statments out there that people seem to repeat
without even thinking about it.

Here is one of my favorites:

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

Did you catch that? Kinda like saying:

Because GinzuFoodSlicer is made out of cheese, it is
particularly well-suited for slicing cheese.

Or like saying:

Because the MitsubishiGeox is made out of pure asphalt,
it is particularly well-suited for driving on asphalt.

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=FCrgen_Kahrs?=]

Here is one of my favorites:

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

Really ? I have never read such "extreme nonsense" (TM).

 

[Malcolm Dew-Jones]

=?ISO-8859-1?Q?J=FCrgen_Kahrs?= ([email protected]) wrote:
: (e-mail address removed) wrote:

: > Here is one of my favorites:
: >
: > Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
: > particularly well suited to processing XML data.

: Really ? I have never read such "extreme nonsense" (TM).

no, but I smell a new term

Whereas "foobar" has been the canonical name for a hypothetical function
which would exist in a real situation, so the term "foobang" would be the
name of a hypothetical piece of technical nonsense.


related words:

"foobanger" -- a person who writes foobangs

"to foobang" -- to document, write, or discuss in precise detail,
technical issues that are fundementally flawed.

 

[Ian Pilcher]

Since XML has been around a while, there seem to be some popular
perceptions and statments out there that people seem to repeat
without even thinking about it.

Here is one of my favorites:

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

My favorite is that that product X is "open" because it uses XML.

 

[Peter Flynn]

Since XML has been around a while, there seem to be some popular
perceptions and statments out there that people seem to repeat
without even thinking about it.

This is probably a troll, but what the hell...

Here is one of my favorites:

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

I was going to say that I didn't think anyone had ever said that (least of
all the people responsible for one of the most popular tools written in
XML, XSLT), but then I remembered The Other One (W3C Schemas).

Did you catch that? Kinda like saying:

Because GinzuFoodSlicer is made out of cheese, it is
particularly well-suited for slicing cheese.

Closer would be:

Because W3C Schemas are written in XML, they must be particularly
well-suited to specifying XML data

Interesting how the programming community, all with Computer Science
degrees, which means they presumably understand the importance of data
modelling syntaxes, collectively screamed when XML came out that they
couldn't possibly learn or use two syntaxes (declaration and document; and
how hard declaration syntax was, poor little mites) — and then went blithely
on to implement a schema language in a syntax designed for marking up text
documents. <sigh/>

///Peter

 

[dingbat]

My favorite is that that product X is "open" because it uses XML.

A close favourite with "Its data model is extensible because it uses
XML"

 

[Nick Kew]

Interesting how the programming community, all with Computer Science
degrees,

Erm, not those of us above a certain age ... compsci was (seen as) a
mickey-mouse degree in my time. Of course, messing about with computers
while doing a real degree was a different matter altogether

which means they presumably understand the importance of data
modelling syntaxes, collectively screamed when XML came out that they
couldn't possibly learn or use two syntaxes (declaration and document; and
how hard declaration syntax was, poor little mites) — and then went blithely
on to implement a schema language in a syntax designed for marking up text
documents. <sigh/>

Golly, next thing we know you'll be coming out as Arjun's disciple

It's not at all clear to me which of SGML and XML has the higher
proportion gratuitous complexity and obscurity. But on hype there
is of course no contest.

 

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

Golly, next thing we know you'll be coming out as Arjun's disciple

And what would be wrong with that?

It's not at all clear to me which of SGML and XML has the higher
proportion gratuitous complexity and obscurity.

SGML is simple for those who wants to use the standard.

XML was supposed to be simple (with the added touch of "hey, I can make
up my own tags as I go"). In practice XML did through away a few of the
higher benefits of its SGML mother.

I'm just guessing now but lets say that about 90% of the XSLT
programming that has been done up til today could be described as a
reinvention of the wheel if architectural processing of XML instances
had been allowed already from the start of XML.

To me; document markup is a piece of cake, figuring out a suitable
algorithm to control some machine in a real world production line can be
a very different experience.

But on hype there is of course no contest.

Sadly true

 

[C. M. Sperberg-McQueen]

Since XML has been around a while, there seem to be some popular
perceptions and statments out there that people seem to repeat
without even thinking about it.

This is probably a troll, but what the hell...
Yep.

Here is one of my favorites:
Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

I was going to say that I didn't think anyone had ever said that
(least of all the people responsible for one of the most popular
tools written in XML, XSLT), but then I remembered The Other One
(W3C Schemas).

Wow, have people actually said that? Who? When?

(Yes, I have heard people claim the XML transfer syntax
as an advantage, but that's because some people think
rather highly of XML as a way to make complex structured
information more easily processable. It has nothing
to do with whether the information in question is
a definition of XML vocabularies.)

Or are you trolling, too, Peter?

-C. M. Sperberg-McQueen

 

[Richard Tobin]

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

[/QUOTE]

I was going to say that I didn't think anyone had ever said that (least of
all the people responsible for one of the most popular tools written in
XML, XSLT), but then I remembered The Other One (W3C Schemas).

I never heard that said about XML Schemas. What I *did* hear - before
the spec was completed - was a sort of converse: that because XML
Schemas will use XML syntax, they will be more amenable to being
processed by XML tools. This is of course true, but unfortunately the
complexity of type derivation limits what can be straightforwardly
extracted from a Schema document using, say, XSLT.

-- Richard

 

[Peter Flynn]

Since XML has been around a while, there seem to be some popular
perceptions and statments out there that people seem to repeat
without even thinking about it.

This is probably a troll, but what the hell...
Yep.

Here is one of my favorites:
Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

I was going to say that I didn't think anyone had ever said that
(least of all the people responsible for one of the most popular
tools written in XML, XSLT), but then I remembered The Other One
(W3C Schemas).

Wow, have people actually said that? Who? When?

I meant that I don't think anyone ever said it about XSLT.
I wouldn't like to count the number of people who have claimed
it about W3C Schemas.

(Yes, I have heard people claim the XML transfer syntax
as an advantage, but that's because some people think
rather highly of XML as a way to make complex structured
information more easily processable. It has nothing
to do with whether the information in question is
a definition of XML vocabularies.)

Ah, but I was talking about the cases where the user thought it *was*.

Or are you trolling, too, Peter?

Moi? <look type="innocent"/>

///Peter

 

[Richard Tobin]

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

[/QUOTE]

I wouldn't like to count the number of people who have claimed
it about W3C Schemas.

Go on, show us *one*.

-- Richard

 

[Malcolm Dew-Jones]

Richard Tobin ([email protected]) wrote:
: In article <[email protected]>,

: >>>> Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
: >>>> particularly well suited to processing XML data.

: >I wouldn't like to count the number of people who have claimed
: >it about W3C Schemas.

: Go on, show us *one*.

That would be counting.

 

[Peter Flynn]

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

I wouldn't like to count the number of people who have claimed
it about W3C Schemas.

[/QUOTE]

[Bear in mind that by "it" I am referring to the belief that using XML
document syntax to describe the document structure somehow makes it better
suited to the task. I am *not* referring to the indisputably useful
side-effect that you can read the Schema during document processing
using XSL[T].]

Go on, show us *one*.

Good grief. You think I was recording their names?

Virtually everyone in the e-commerce field who took one look at DTDs
and said "Aaarrrggghh, I can't use that."

Everyone who ever subscribed to the "if XML is so smart, how come it
can't describe itself" movement.

Read the logs of the XML SIG.

Several senior developers I spoke to a few weeks ago who had never even
considered DTDs because it was natural to them to use the same language for
both document and definition (this one baffles me for the reasons I gave
earlier).

The numerous pundits and gurus who have been claiming for years that text
documents will have to use W3C Schemas because DTDs will be dead soon.

I won't go on. In one or two cases which were personal conversations I do of
course have a name but these were private discussions.

///Peter

 

[Richard Tobin]

Because [FooWhizBangTool] is written in XML, it is
particularly well suited to processing XML data.

[/QUOTE]

Virtually everyone in the e-commerce field who took one look at DTDs
and said "Aaarrrggghh, I can't use that."

Several senior developers I spoke to a few weeks ago who had never even
considered DTDs because it was natural to them to use the same language for
both document and definition (this one baffles me for the reasons I gave
earlier).

The numerous pundits and gurus who have been claiming for years that text
documents will have to use W3C Schemas because DTDs will be dead soon.

But none of these amounts to the ridiculous claim quoted at the top.
They are all much more plausible - if somewhat overstated - views.

Everyone who ever subscribed to the "if XML is so smart, how come it
can't describe itself" movement.

This one is just silly, and I never heard anyone say it.

-- Richard

 

[PHeadland]

compsci was (seen as) a mickey-mouse degree in my time

As someone who read CS at a certain establishment a couple of years
before you got there, I resent that! Any fule kno that Land Economy was
the true dosser's degree (closely followed by HPS).

 

[Nick Kew]

As someone who read CS at a certain establishment a couple of years
before you got there, I resent that! Any fule kno that Land Economy was
the true dosser's degree (closely followed by HPS).

Yeah, land economy was there for the ultra-rich, so that those without
a hope in hell of earning a real degree could get a qualification to
take over the ancestral estates. Noone is suggesting that compsci
was even remotely like that.

OTOH, when three (of ten in my college and year) maths students
failed outright at the end of the second year[1], compsci was the
obvious escape route (for the one who still wanted a degree) ...

[1] That's when years of idleness - prompted by school work having
been mindnumblingly trivial - caught up with us. My own second year
result was nothing to be proud of, and a deep shock when you've
always taken top marks for granted.