xml from ed

[Edward Glowacki]

Ahh... I wouldn't be at all surprised if XML is reinventing the
wheel on more things than one.  Hell, isn't that what computer
software is all about, beating a reinvented wheel to the point
where it's octagonal?

At this point I don't give a shit what format I use to store my
data, so long as I can actually use it.  I'm just sick of fighting
with computers, and software developers, and standards setters,
and whoever else is out there making my computer-using life miserable.
Most of the source code out there probably runs better after running
it through ROT13 than it does now.  And for that matter, it would
be easier to understand if the documentation went through a round
of ROT13 as well.  Hell, even if you run /dev/null through ROT13
you get "/qri/ahyy" [1] which is better documentation than some
programs come with.  But I digress.

I've already wasted way too much time and energy trying to find a
good way to manage my content, and as a result I haven't *produced*
any content.  The problem with computers is simple: they cause
interference between the idea and the execution of that idea,
instead of facilitating that interaction.


[1]hope I did that in my head correctly


Quoted from Ben Pfaff on Fri, Jul 27, 2001 at 01:49:30PM -0400:
> Edward Glowacki <glowack2@msu.edu> writes:
> 
> > This whole
> > XML thing sounds like a nice idea, but thusfar it doesn't seem very
> > user friendly... =P
> 
> Did you see the Lisp user's rant about XML on a.h.b-o-u the other
> day?  "No", you say?  Well here you go:
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Subject: Re: So, where's the "Javadoc" for COMMON Lisp? 
> From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
> Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
> 
> * Steve Long <stevelong@isomedia.com>
> > Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a
> > direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading?
> 
>   What on _earth_ can XML possibly have to offer people who are not already
>   completely out of their mind?  The interesting thing is to use Common
>   Lisp to deal with that abomination so that some people can see how dumb
>   SGML and HTML and XML really are and how it should have been done.  There
>   is _zero_ point in moving from Common Lisp to XML.  Making a connection
>   from CL to XML that is not pure kindness to the losers is _dangerous_.
>   Even as a data notation, CL is already at least a decade ahead of XML.
>   SGML and XML are good ideas if you were comatose when you designed your
>   software to begin with, but _only_ then.  We should approach XML people
>   with a "good, good, you figured out that a uniform syntax has benefits --
>   how many _more_ years of pain and suffering and agonizing over lost data
>   before you figure out that types, read-write consistencey, _intelligent_
>   in-memory representation, programmable syntax, and macros have benefits,
>   too?"  Sigh!  These folks are coming from a third-world country as far as
>   software goes, and absolutely anything that carries symptoms of IQ above
>   freezing (Fahrenheit, just like the room temperature), is better than
>   their astonishingly retarded data formats.  That _includes_ most of the
>   dreadfully "look, ma, I can also reinvent the wheel, with no hands!" Unix
>   "configuration file" syntaxes, log file formats, etc, etc.  My God, it is
>   so amazingly mindless!  Speaking of which, if anyone needs evidence that
>   there is _no_ god, that whatever god was here has _left_ the planet, etc,
>   take a look at the fantastic mess that people arrange for themselves in
>   data formats and what they actually consider improvements!  Clearly, this
>   could not have taken place if anyone, I mean _anyone_, had had a grand
>   plan.  Even a god who were responsible for the platypus would have done
>   better than XML.
> 
>   Now, what did you have in mind?
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Edward Glowacki				glowack2@msu.edu
GLLUG Peon  				http://www.gllug.org
Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
                -- Jules de Gaultier