• From: "Len Bullard" <cbullard@h...>
• To: "'Steve Newcomb'" <srn@c...>, <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 17:10:47 -0600

Steve sez:  "Len, I think you're arguing in favor of the rule of law."

I'm in favor of burgers after the gig. OTOH, I need stable blood sugar.  

Consistency or appetite?  Data are burgers.

XML transactions have to adapt to data on the fly and rejection is
adaptation as are other less draconian measures.  The appetite determines
that.  Data can be consistent or it can change. The appetite for change
consumes hours the budget.  If it is consistent, machines do most of the
work.  Production consumes the budget. If it has an appetite, humans are in
the loops and if so, be sure they understand that trade-off.  The greater
the appetite for ignorance of the technology, the slower and more complex
are the processes consuming budget.  

OTW, XML transactions are easy to adapt given knowledge of the tools and the
concepts of schena/stylesheet design.  

*Off topic:  should schemas and style sheets be the same thing? 

Law is never static where appetites are changing and if they are changing
fast, consistency of the means is the palliative.  Rule of law is the rule
of men adjudicated by means which if not reliable, are pathogenic.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Newcomb [mailto:srn@c...] 
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 2:49 PM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject: Re:  Which is the Authority: The Schema or the Text?

Len, I think you're arguing in favor of the rule of law.  I just don't
think it's very easy these days to get people to face up to the sheer
inconvenience of keeping civilization running, much less volunteer to
bear any of the cost on their own budgets.  It's always somebody else's
burden, not theirs.

Toward the end of the G.W. Bush administration, I had a bumper sticker
on my car that read, "IMPEACH ALL SCOFFLAW PRESIDENTS".  Since Obama's
election, I've been, uh, unimpressed with the respect for the rule of
law demonstrated by his administration.

I'm not even bothering to put a new bumper sticker on my car; my rage is
exhausted.  It's the Zeitgeist, man.  These are the Years of Deferred
Maintenance for all the institutions of liberty.  If somebody asks you
why you're ignoring all the public and private law (including XML
schemas) that should be constraining your behavior, the following
explanation seems to work for the entire Executive Branch of the U.S.
government, all U.S. telecom companies, and, I suspect, most federal
contractors:

"9/11. 9/11! 9/11? 9/11!! 9/11; 9/11. 9/11: 9/11, 9/11, ..."

which, roughly translated, means, "It's inconvenient."

> It's a messy world and gets messier the longer one ignores the rules. 
> Creativity and pipelines of data that has to be both correct by
> construction and in compliance to enable decoupled processes do not
> congeal happily or cheaply.
> 
> len

• References:
  • Re: Which is the Authority: The Schema or the Text?
    • From: Steve Newcomb <srn@c...>