Re: XML: The good, the bad, and the ugly

"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> writes:
> Maybe I'm misusing the term "communication". But I think of
> communication as transferring data (or information) between one
> "locus" and another. That could mean moving it from one continent
> to another, or from one chip on a board to another chip on the same
> board, or from one gate in a chip to another gate in the same chip.
> It could also mean moving it from one person to another.
>
> I also think of two programs, one that writes a file and one that
> reads a file, to have "moved" the data from one "locus" to another.
> I even think of the messages that fly around inside an object
> oriented system as "communication" between the objects.
>
> It's not my purpose to use standard terms in a non-standard way.
> So, if there really is a standard meaning for the term
> "communication" that precludes the above usage, then I'm in the
> market for another term. But so far, I haven't found the other
> term, or a definitive rule that says I shouldn't use "communication"
> this way.

if it is communicate ... as in *computer communication* ... then it tends to be moving data around.

if it is communicate as in *convey information* .... then it is back to the original invention/characteristic of gml about self-describing information ... which could be used for determining format presentation. there were lots of document formating ... but they tended to markup the document with explicit formating information; part of the genuis of gml ... was that it markedup the document with information about the document elements ... and allowed the formating rules for those elements to be independent of the tagging of the document elements. it somewhat opened the way for being able to use the document markup information for things other than document presentation.

-- 
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/