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XML already is going the way of the punchcard (Score:2)
It has been around how long now and how many people have actually figured out how to use it and what to use it for? Stick with TeX and LaTeX and wait for the fad to blowover.
Re:XML already is going the way of the punchcard (Score:2)
Lots of people are using XML. Lots of people are using XML successfully. More importantly perhaps, lots of people are using XML unsuccessfully because they have overblown expectations of it (a.k.a. hype).
But XML, in the document management field and elsewhere, works. I can write a book for O'Reilly in DocBook, and they can chuck it through their processing toolset and have a book come out the other end. I can use SAX tool suites to process DBI and Excel files the sam
Re:XML already is going the way of the punchcard (Score:2)
Power is often passed over for simplicity as nature favours the path of least resistance...this would not be XML. DTDs are stupefying and the mess of CPAN modules is beyond even my ability to figure out which goes where when and how. I have lurked for many moons on the XML list and I have yet to really understand who and what are in which ring of the circus.
I don't think people have lofty expectations I just think they're as confused as I am as to what this blob of stuff is really supposed to do and how to use it to do whatever 'it' might be. I still use TeX and I use Frame which can generate XML or SGML if needed but I've not had any cause to use it.
I think XML would have a lot more success if it wasn't seemingly all over the map, if DTDs seemed sane and if there was some focus instead of a lot of different people saying a lot of different things about what XML is and why the lot of confused people such as myself might give it a second thought. XML gives me that same feeling punchcards did...there's got to be something better than this.
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Re:XML already is going the way of the punchcard (Score:2)
Which is why a lot of this is a good thing. To be able to learn a single toolset (XML processing) and apply it to DBI or Excel spreadsheets, or whatever you may please, is a simple thing and a good thing.
Re:XML already is going the way of the punchcard (Score:2)
XML is not simple. That's the problem. Have you tried wading through the XML mess on CPAN lately? Nothing seems at all simple about that.
Re:XML already is going the way of the punchcard (Score:3, Insightful)
I fixed the SAX "problem", now it's time to fix the modules problem.
(note: you could say the exact same thing about all the templating modules, or all the DBIx modules, but nobody bitches about that. Sheesh)
Re:XML already is going the way of the punchcard (Score:1)
I think it's a little unfair to pick on the XML modules for not being intuitive. Have you tried doing a search on Apache lately? Holy clusterfuck Batman...