Re: funny article

"Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.comREMOVE> writes:
> Delightful! Disappointing to find out that XML is female, however,
> as I was taught to worship only men and male icons (being from a US
> red state). Ah well.
>
> As humorous as the worship of XML might be, equally humorous is the
> fear of the same, as in beliefs such as:
>
> STOP! Be afraid! Your livelihood is under attack by a new approach
> to formatted data. While comma-quote (comma-separated,
> comma-delimited, tab-delimited, csv, etc) formats did no physical
> harm, we are now being attacked by a data format so powerful that it
> will topple our profession. DO NOT TOUCH! If you get any of the
> XML on your hands, it will start oozing into every part of your
> being. <soul>It will consume you!</soul> Anything you touch will
> then be wrapped in XML. This will not only make your stuff
> dog-ugly, but will slow you down to a point where medication will
> not be effective in reviving you. Everything you once held dear
> will mean nothing to you ever again. Be afraid -- BE VERY
> AFRAID<punctuation>!</punctuation>

gml (initials of three people involved) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#sgml

was invented at the science center in the '60s http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech

nominally as an enhanced "markup language" for document formating ... aka an enhancement to the existing cms script command processing support (that had been created in the mid-60s using runoff-like "dot" commands for formating). However, hardly before gml support was incorporated into the cms script command ... tags were appearing that we describing the type of data (as opposed to the formating of the data .... with the formating being specified for data types). As a result, you start seeing gml used as integral part of long-term document existance .... not just document formating (definitly in place by the time gml was standardized as iso sgml standard in the late 70s).

html by the early 90s was much more of a return to the original document (format) markup heritage of the 60s. In the 90s, you also somewhat find ASN.1 and html competing as an encoding paradigm for network transmission of data elements.

xml is much of a return to the *ML direction of the early 70s .... used for describing the document elements as opposed to simply describing the formating of document elements.

one of the early xml issues with regard to encoding paradigm for networking transmission (as alternative to ASN.1) was deterministic encoding rules related to digitally signed documents. The document was xml encoded and digitally signed, the data elements were transmitted non-encoded with an attached digital signature. The recipient had to (XML) re-encode the data elements in order to verify the digital signature. This only worked if there were strict deterministic XML encoding rules.

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