Hi Chee-Kai,

> I understand your impatience with the thread, Mark.

More bemusement than impatience :-)
 
> BTW, what is the meaning of OED?  I thought you don't advocate use of 
> acronyms...

Exactly my point and why I used it.  In my circle of semantic standards
development for the UN, we know what we mean with that acronym, but the
rest of you are scratching your heads.  The same is true for XML.  Do
you mean Extensible Markup Language (XML) or X-Men Legends (XML source:
http://www.acronymfinder.com/XML.html) or who knows what other meaning
might be applied.  At SAP we have found that every use of an acronym or
abbreviation results in a direct cost in terms of extra effort for
mapping and integration that is absorbed by the customer.  As I stated
before, there is never a guarantee of the meaning unless you convey it
along with the acronym itself.  This is especially true in the area of
international trade where precise semantics can mean the difference in
profit or loss.  My adversion is also based on my 35 years of exposure
to the difficulties and misunderstandings that arose even from the
masters at developing acronyms - the US DoD.  

Kind Regards,  

Mark 


 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chin Chee-Kai [mailto:cheekai@s...] 
> Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 9:47 PM
> To: Crawford, Mark
> Cc: costello@m...; xml-dev@l...
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] Is "XML" an abbreviation or an acronym?
> 
> Crawford, Mark wrote:
> > For semantically rich, avoid all uses of both acronyms and 
> abbreviations as there is NEVER a guarantee of uniqueness.  
> If you insist, pick a dictionary (most consider the full 
> version of the OED to be the most authoritative) and use its 
> definition consistently. Everything else will just be opinions.
> >   

> 
> 
> Regards,
> Chin Chee-Kai
> 
>