--- "Oleg A. Paraschenko" <olpa@x...> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> On Mon, 3 Apr 2006 10:34:01 -0700 (PDT)
> Tatu Saloranta <cowtowncoder@y...> wrote:
> 
> ...
> > ...
> > > In most applications, the actual DOM
> implementation
> > > is a second
> > 
> > Geez. Absolute not! Choosing the API may be
> secondary
> > issue, choosing implementation is anything but.
> > Otherwise you might just choose, Electric XML over
> > Xerces... or something equally silly.
> 
> Why "anything but"? If practice show that choice is
> silly, the
> implementation can be replaced.

Yes, it should be easy to change (assuming
implementations in question are truly interchangeable;
usually more a problem for non-conforming ones), but
enduring side-effects of using a broken
implementation, (before choice is found to be bad) can
be nasty (things like parser accepting invalid
content, storing it in database; apps using it
assuming incorrect usage is expected one, making
upgrade hard).

It certainly depends on what you use your tools for,
though: if your data is not valuable, it's less
dangerous/costly to use broken tools (and to choose an
implementation without properly evaluating it).
Similarly, if one's time is not very valuable, there's
less downside to using cumbersome tools.

At the end of the day though I myseld do not worry too
much about whether majority of developers uses
sub-optimal tools, as long as enough choose
alternatives to keep the developers of superior tools
motivated and working on those tools.
Things still work out ok. I will be more productive,
and even more so relatively speaking: if one wants to
use swiss pocketknife with screws (... or hammer), no
problem; I'll be ok with choosing screwdriver instead.
Like Len said, popularity contest does not need to be
the only game in town. Less popular can be better
("millons of flies"), the correlation between goodness
and popularity is quite weak.

-+ Tatu +-


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