[11753] in www-talk@info.cern.ch
Re: Semantic Document Framework(s) [language]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William F. Hammond)
Fri Nov 10 10:34:16 2000
From: "William F. Hammond" <hammond@csc.albany.edu>
Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 10:27:49 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <200011101527.KAA29408@hilbert.math.albany.edu>
To: nferrier@tapsellferrier.co.uk, sean@mysterylights.com,
www-rdf-interest@w3.org
Cc: www-talk@w3.org
Resent-From: www-talk@w3.org
Nic Ferrier writes, citing Sean Palmer:
> >It's just unbelievably complex. What you aare all saying is
> >that there is no system as clever as a human: if there was,
> >we could process it.
Not that all humans are equally clever, but doesn't their existence
suggest the existence of "systems" that clever.
> No. That's not the point really. The point is that even humans can't
> parse languages like English with any reliability.
Witness my last sentence above.
> We *think* we know what we and others mean *most* of the time... but
> we often make mistakes. That's why politicians can exist.
. . .
> Teaching non-ambiguous English is a LOT harder than teaching
> non-ambiguous XML.
Indeed.
A small amount of markup can clarify greatly.
Systems can be designed that enrich it to the point of creating
bloated-for-public-web-client xml.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(Is this "English"?)
What sometimes happens is that compulsive authors equipped with a
powerful and succinct markup tend to over-elaborate, making their
markup source look overly complex to others.
My first awareness of such markup happened many years ago when I was
taught always to leave two spaces (or a newline) after sentence-ending
punctuation.
-- Bill
