At 12:30 AM 7/2/2008, Liam wrote:
We wanted XML to be implementable in 2 weeks by a grad student.
As opposed to taking an experienced full-time programmer a year,
which was (according to available evidence) closer to the mark for
a full SGML parser.  But the first implementations were in Java
and C rather than in Perl.

The DPH was the person in the documentation department tasked with
(say) changing every reference to part 2006 to part 2009 without
affecting dates... in, say, 100,000 documents of suitably marked-up
XML.  This was a real-life sort of example, and the point was that
we could not (then) assume XML support in text processing languages
such as Perl, so we had to make sure that non-XML-aware tools could
handle XML reliably....
...
I never took it to reflect on the programming ability of the Perl
programmer, though.

This is interesting as it reflects a set of assumptions grounded in 
the experience of the 1990s, when such people could and did have to 
implement solutions in markup-based systems without much benefit from 
off-the-shelf parsers and libraries.



Then, around 2000 (as XML was getting seriously underway), I remember 
an excited DPH of the classic variety (self-taught, smart, 
accomplished in CGI) saying to me with amazement and satisfaction 
that "XML means I'll never have to write another parser!"



That rather changed things ... bringing us to the present (and back 
on topic) when we have to explain that XSLT doesn't actually parse 
anything unless you write a parser in it.



Cheers,
Wendell


======================================================================
Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.                http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson Street                    Direct Phone: 301/315-9635
Suite 207                                          Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850                                 Fax: 301/315-8285
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
======================================================================