[Python-Dev] OT: XML

[Paul Prescod]

Well, as long as everyone else is going to be off-topic:

What definition of "language" are you using? And while you're at it,
what definition of "semantics" are you using?

As I recall, a string is an ordered list of symbols and a language is an
unordered set of strings.

I know that Ka-Ping, despite going to a great university was in
Engineering, not computer science, so I'll excuse him for not knowing
the Chomskian definition of language, :), but what's your excuse Eric?

Most XML people will happily admit that XML has no "semantics" but I
think that's bullshit too. The mapping from the string to the abstract
tree data model *is the semantic content* of the XML specification. Yes,
it is a brain-dead simple mapping and so the semantic structure provided
by the XML specification is minimal...but that's the whole point. It's
supposed to be simple. It's supposed to not get in the way of higher
level semantics.

It makes as little sense to reject XML out of hand because it is a
buzzword but is not innovative as it does for people to embrace it
mystically because it is Microsoft's flavor of the week.

XML takes simple ideas from the Lisp and document processing communities
and popularize them so that they can achieve economies of scale. It
sounds exactly like the relationship between Lisp and Python to me...

By the way, what data model or text encoding is NOT isomorphic to Lisp
S-expressions? Isn't Python code isomorphic to Lisp s-expessions?

 Paul Prescod