[gmpi] Re: Topic 7.1: Channel Formats / XML, Profiles

  • From: Steve Harris <S.W.Harris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: gmpi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2003 05:50:59 +0100

On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 03:09:12 -0700, Chris Grigg wrote:
> >Think of SGML v's XML. SGML supported /everything/ whereas XML supports
> >the bare minimum of functionality. Because SGML was so complex it never
> >took off. In 5 years XML has got massively wider adoption that SGML did in
> >20.
> 
> XML is the example that proves why parameterization does not kill 
> standardization efforts, but rather reinforces them, and is therefore 
> worth the trouble.  In fact, XML is -highly- parameterized, which is 
> its strength, and the key to its ability to adapt tightly and 
> appropriately to many different applications, and that (in addition 
> to human/machine readability) is exactly why it's successful, and why 
> it'll probably be a stable, durable basis for products for many years 
> to come.  We could learn from XML.

No, this is not a reasonable analogy. The equivalent would be that
arbitrary subgraphs could be in arbitrary cacharcter sets. That was banned
in XML.

For XML, we had SGML and tried to chip away all the cruft to be left with
something minimal. Here we have things like VST that were trying to chip
away cruft from. I've not seen any evidence that (in audio buffer terms)
VST isn't functionally complete - granted it has inadequet parameter
representation, but were discussing buffers here.

Unless you can demonstrate that audio representation /requires/ something
other than PCM float then it's cruft.

> In XML, there is no such thing as a generalized XML parser; XML is 
> only an underlying technology model, not an application, and XML only 
> becomes a usable application when combined with a DTD or schema 

Not true, one of the most important simplifications in XML was the concept
of a well-formed document. The vast majority of XML is well-formed, but
not valid (ie. it has no DTD or schema, but it still interpretable).

- Steve 

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