[SGML vs. XML]

[Matt Graham]

Edward Glowacki <glowack2@msu.edu> wrote:
> I did
> find one post somewhere that basically said, "I step on some toes
> here, but XML has a future and SGML doesn't."  Since I haven't
> really started writing anything yet, should I learn the XML or SGML
> syntax (and therefore learn about XML or SGML in general)?

I'm currently working on a Big-Ass Project that involves lots of XML.  I'd
have to say AOL on the "future" comment there, as SGML is more complicated
than XML in some ways and offers little tangible benefit that I can see.  You
can find lots of stuff on freshmeat and sourceforge that deals with writing
and parsing XML, while there are many fewer projects that deal with SGML.

Apropos of nothing, I am responsible for 80% of the RTF->XML converter in our
company's product, and this is because about 6 months ago, I noticed that
"<wibble foo>" wasn't a valid XML tag while "<wibble_foo>" was.  As a result,
they had me write the converter and deal with the N+1 problems with the
internal data format, the customer's DTD which mutated every time they
sneezed, and the customer's ignorance of what a DTD specified and what it
didn't.  ("<!ELEMENT DOC_toplevel (wibble*, wobble?)>  does not mean that a
'wobble' tag must always be present except when a 'wibble' tag is!  Sure, the
*comments* say that, but the comments are not the DTD and are fundamentally
out of sync with it here!")

Cynical Moral:  "Do not show competence, lest ye be given more work to do."

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
"I backed up my brain to tape, but tar says the tape contains no data...."

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