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Good answer. "Champion, Mike" wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Tom Bradford [mailto:bradford@d...] > > Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 2:19 PM > > To: xml-dev@l... > > Subject: Here's a good question > > > > > > Why does the DOM [expletive deleted] so badly? I'll leave the many reasons for the > > question to your imagination and cumulative experience. > > Uhh, if I didn't know of Tom's impeccable reputation as a man of refined > manners and subtle eloquence, I might be offended. But I guess I'll plead > ignorance and ask for a clarification: explain what you mean by "[expletive deleted]". > > If it "[expletive deleted]" because it doesn't exploit all the power of Java > classes/collections/Strings/Lists/etc." ... well, duh, it's > language-neutral! > > If it "[expletive deleted]" because it's full of kludgy compromises between browsers and > editors, HTML and XML, trees and lists, clients and servers, and between the > various competitors who have drafted it ... well, duh! It was written by a > committee reprsenting all these incompatible viewpoints ... what do you > expect? > > If it "[expletive deleted]" because it exposes XML 1.0's dirty linen (external parsed > entities, CDATA sections, the bizarre differences in whitespace processing > in validating and non-validating parsers, the overwhelming number of ways > namespaces find to confuse people ... you know my litany) ... I guess the > DOM [expletive deleted] because life [expletive deleted] :~) > > If it "[expletive deleted]" because things that are obvious in 2001 weren't obvious in > 1997-1998, well duh! If it continues to [expletive deleted] because the W3C is very > reluctant to introduce backward incompatibility, that's a good point to > debate. > > If it "[expletive deleted]" because of all the things it doesn't have ... well, the > feeling at the time was that a DOM Recommendation that didn't come out in > time to be supported by IE5 and (the non-exisitent, but we didn't know that > at the time) Navigator 5 would be DOA in the Real World. There seemed to be > a narrow window of opportunity to get a Dynamic HTML API out in time to be > supported by the browsers, and an XML API in time to be supported by all the > XML tools that were being planned. For better or worse, the DOM hit that > window. > > The DOM (like XML) is not a triumph of elegance; it's a triumph of "if we do > not hang together, we shall hang separately." At least the Browser Wars > were not followed by API Wars. Better a common API that we all love to hate > than a bazillion contending APIs that carve the Web up into contending > enclaves of True Believers. > > > > Is it all Mike Champion's fault? :) > > Probably. > > All I can say is that the experience has been immensely humbling. If anyone > has ideas for a better API that meets DOM's fundamental constraints, that > would be a very interesting discussion to have here. > > ----------------------------------------------------------------- > The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an > initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org> > > The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from this elist use the subscription > manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl> -- Tom Bradford The dbXML Group, L.L.C. http://www.dbxmlgroup.com/ Desktop, Laptop, Settop, Palmtop. Can your XML database do that?
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