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No size fits all. Sure. And you are right, lots of systems, most in fact, worked without the ESIS. But the interoperability of the systems was poor in the extreme with the exception of the operation of exchanging SGML and even then, one needed expert knowledge to achieve that seamlessly. Ok, but it meant buying an SGML system that was production worthy was typically a one-system purchase and it was expensive. SoftQuad tried to break that with low cost editors, but went broke doing that. Two things about interchangeable parts systems: 1. Costs usually come down over time if the manufacturing volume is reasonably high. 2. Systems can be tuned within reasonable limits to missions without too much custom coding by mixing an matching parts. I don't dispute the value of custom coding; just saying it isn't needed for the majority of the work we do. As I said to David, the world of SGML was big systems and specialists using publishing systems and not networks. That is not the world of XML for the most part. As a result, if XML is to be a core technology, it has to be very resilient and reliable in the face of not-quite-ADEPT hands. len From: Gavin Thomas Nicol [mailto:gtn@r...] On Wednesday 26 February 2003 04:00 pm, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote: > Walter, as much as I respect you, this is like > saying all rifles should be handmade: in other > words, no interchangeable parts. The point is that even though *some* uses of rifles benefit from mass production, it is unreasonable to expect *all* rifle components to be interchangeable. After all, a Lee Enfield is great as a bush rifle, but I wouldn't want to use it if I was a sniper. > The days of SGML-pre-ESIS were a nightmare because of that. Sure, but you also know that even though a lot of good things were done with the ESIS, many/most *applications* didn't use it.
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