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XML for Ancients

Posted by michael on from the still-pumped-from-using-the-chisel dept.

Andrew writes: "More than 5,000 years ago, the very first information revolution occurred when some unknown research team in Mesopotamia found a way to download and store language through a killer application called "writing.". The cuneiform digital library will have 60,000 texts ready in a couple of years. Using SVG and XML to represent their documents. Similar efforts are underway for hieroglyphics."

10 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. ... by evel+aka+matt · · Score: 4, Funny

    How Snowcrash.

  2. It appears that... by Teancom · · Score: 5, Funny

    they are also writing their tcp packets on clay tablets, and attempting to send them down the wire. That was the quickest /.'ing I've *ever* seen.

  3. First case of poor infrastructure planning... by gregwbrooks · · Score: 5, Funny
    "640 clay tablets is enough for anyone!"


    -- William "Scorpion King" Gates

    --


    "It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
  4. Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny
    "More than 5,000 years ago, the very first information revolution occurred when some unknown research team in Mesopotamia found a way to download and store language through a killer application called "writing.". The cuneiform digital library will have 60,000 texts ready in a couple of years. Using SVG and XML to represent their documents.


    Sooo... this project has been going on for about 5,000 years, they're finally going to be making a large release in a few years, and we're *JUST NOW* hearing about this?

    My *god*, talk about keeping the PR lid on tight!
  5. XML? Thank god it's not MS Word by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    ...or else the uhh.. because... uhmm..
    Oh, what the hell.

    Micro$oft sucks.

  6. XML is a poor choice for cuneiform by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny

    IIRC, cuneiform writing is composed entirely of angle brackets. To write this in XML, every character is going to have to be escaped!

  7. XML Hieroglyphics by darkov · · Score: 2, Funny

    I believe the ancient Egyptians avoiding using XML at the time because of concerns over RAND licencing and prefered the patent-free ideograms.

    No, really.

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  8. Should story links also have [url] notation? by KNicolson · · Score: 2, Funny

    I was worried I might end up here instead...

  9. Time to upgrade by ukryule · · Score: 1, Funny

    I know it's bad form to criticise someones writing on /. but it really is time for you to catch up with modern developments ... Version 1.0 (codename cuneiform) has long been superceded by 2.0 (codename Heiroglyphics), 3.0 (greek), and 3.1 (latin).

    While there is still some support for all sub-releases of version 3, I suggest you upgrade to the latest release (3.1.27 - 'joined up alphanumeric').

    Of course there has been some criticism of the 'open source' nature of the writing project with claims that it leads to too many active branches (most notably with interoperability issues with the popular 'Chinese', 'Arabic' and 'Roman' branches).

  10. XML for Ancients? by brad-d · · Score: 5, Funny

    All I can think of now is the new book series:

    "XML for Mummies"

    At least in this case when you see the reviews "this book will put you to sleep" it really doesn't matter.

    --
    -Brad