Subject: Re: So, where's the "Javadoc" for COMMON Lisp? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2001 16:33:21 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3204808398598543@naggum.net> * Steve Long <stevelong@isomedia.com> > Any ideas for implementing this functionality in the XML world, a > direction that much of the sofware world seems to be heading? What on _earth_ can XML possibly have to offer people who are not already completely out of their mind? The interesting thing is to use Common Lisp to deal with that abomination so that some people can see how dumb SGML and HTML and XML really are and how it should have been done. There is _zero_ point in moving from Common Lisp to XML. Making a connection from CL to XML that is not pure kindness to the losers is _dangerous_. Even as a data notation, CL is already at least a decade ahead of XML. SGML and XML are good ideas if you were comatose when you designed your software to begin with, but _only_ then. We should approach XML people with a "good, good, you figured out that a uniform syntax has benefits -- how many _more_ years of pain and suffering and agonizing over lost data before you figure out that types, read-write consistencey, _intelligent_ in-memory representation, programmable syntax, and macros have benefits, too?" Sigh! These folks are coming from a third-world country as far as software goes, and absolutely anything that carries symptoms of IQ above freezing (Fahrenheit, just like the room temperature), is better than their astonishingly retarded data formats. That _includes_ most of the dreadfully "look, ma, I can also reinvent the wheel, with no hands!" Unix "configuration file" syntaxes, log file formats, etc, etc. My God, it is so amazingly mindless! Speaking of which, if anyone needs evidence that there is _no_ god, that whatever god was here has _left_ the planet, etc, take a look at the fantastic mess that people arrange for themselves in data formats and what they actually consider improvements! Clearly, this could not have taken place if anyone, I mean _anyone_, had had a grand plan. Even a god who were responsible for the platypus would have done better than XML. Now, what did you have in mind? #:Erik -- There is nothing in this message that under normal circumstances should cause Barry Margolin to announce his moral superiority over others, but one never knows how he needs to behave to maintain his belief in it.