Re: Bob needs a new catchphrase

paul c <toledobythesea_at_dbms.yuc> wrote:

>Gene Wirchenko wrote:
>> Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>> ...
>> What gets me is how could people think that
>> <quantity>6</quantity>
>> and the like are anywhere near sane.
>> ...
>
>Apart from that, why enforce hierarchy (not really my question, many
>others asked it first), a very discredited approach. But those two
>effects were enough for me to want to write xml off, as all the touted
>advantages I read of had to either with programmability using
>self-styled OO languages or readability. So from the start, I assumed
>both so-called advantages (free of context and capable of database
>importance at the same time) were not real, just some kind of in-joke.

     I have wondered about that, too. There is a spoof interview around of Stroustrup where it is "revealed" that the purpose of C++ was jobs for the boys.

>The noise about xml that persists almost ten years later makes we wonder
>if there was a deep fundamental point about that I've been missing all
>this time. My personal, perhaps wrong theory is the authors were
>hackers of the most deprecated kind, the ones who take a very narrow
>view and try to magnify it into a global context. I'm sure they had
>some inspiration and I don't want to disparage that as it is one of our
>most rare and important abilities to have but it is nothing without
>discipline.

     Thus making discipline the more important of the two. I am very tired of silver bullets. I suppose they are correctly named after all. They certainly tarnish quickly.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:

     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     He/She has prejudices.