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At 12:19 28/11/2001 -0800, Stuart Celarier wrote: >No, silly, ISO really stands for Organisation Internationale de >Normalisation. Please see http://www.iso.org/iso/fr/xsite/guide.html#Abbrev. It is also the Greek prefix "iso" meaning "same". The string "ISO" has multiple interpretations and is thus useful in poetry, exegesis of Joycean texts and as an example of dry standards work occasionally having a sense of humour. See also: the not-what-you-might-first-think meaning of "OO" in the Third Manifesto by Darwen and Date (http://www.acm.org/sigmod/record/issues/9503/manifesto.ps). All well worn acronyms come to represent lunes in the noosphere rather than crisp points in the spheres surface. "SQL" and "HTML" as statements, have become almost meaningless other than as a rough guide to the position of the lune on the noosphere. The same will happen to XML I fear. Especially if we continue not to have at least GAXP (Generally Accepted XML Principles) by analogy with GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). or (preferably) an agreed upon taxonomy of isomorphic forms and null-ish transformations from XML to processor and back to XML again. This is happening by stealth at the moment as individual technologies or products invent their own isomorphic forms. They are doing it on islands, often far removed from public view and expanding the lune as they do so. A tangentially related article I wrote recently for ITWorld http://www.itworld.com/nl/xml_prac/10182001/ Sean
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