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XML Co-Creator says XML Is Too Hard For Programmers

orangerobot writes "Tim Bray, one of the co-authors of the original XML 1.0 specification has a new entry on his website explaining why he's been feeling unsatisified lately with XML and says his last experience writing code for handling XML was 'irritating, time-consuming, and error-prone.' XML has always a divided response among the technical community. The anti-XML community has several sites stating their positions."

8 of 562 comments (clear)

  1. He's not the only one! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    For more anti-XML rantings, but this time with a helpful guide to get users over those speedbumps, click here.

  2. XML Sucks Site by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    What a plain and butt ugly site! If only they had used some XML, it would be a lot nicer.

  3. And .....? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    For those who cant seem to stay on subject, here is something to think about...

    Try to edit your responses of unnecessary material before attempting
    to impress us with your insight. The evidence that you are a
    nincompoop will still be available to readers, but they will be
    able to access it ever so much more rapidly.

    I have snipped away most of your of what you wrote, because, well...
    it didn't really say anything. Your attempt at constructing a
    creative flame was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together
    a bunch of insults among a load of babbling was hardly effective...
    Maybe later in life, after you have learned to read, write, spell,
    and count, you will have more success. True, these are rudimentary
    skills that many of us "normal" people take for granted that
    everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget
    that there are "challenged" persons in this world who find these
    things more difficult. If I had known, that this was your case then
    I would have never read your post. It just wouldn't have been
    "right". Sort of like parking in a handicap space. I wish you the
    best of luck in the emotional, and social struggles that seem to be
    placing such a demand on you.

    You are so clueless that if we stripped you naked, soaked you in
    clue musk, and dropped you into a field full of horny clues, You
    still would not have a clue.

    I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard
    stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it
    goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension
    of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid
    collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed.
    Stupid gotten so dense that no intellect can escape. Singularity
    stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more
    stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year.
    Quasar stupid. Your writing has to be a troll. Nothing in our
    universe can really be this stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial
    fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence
    of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the
    laws of physics that we know. I'm sorry. I can't go on. This is an
    epiphany of stupid for me. After this, you may not hear from me
    again for a while. I don't have enough strength left to deride
    your ignorant questions and half baked comments about unimportant
    trivia, or any of the rest of this drivel. Duh.

    You swine. You vulgar little maggot. You worthless bag of filth. As we
    say in Texas, you couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions
    printed on the heel. You are a canker, an open wound. I would rather
    kiss a lawyer than be seen with you. You took your last vacation in
    the Isles of Langerhan.

    You're a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are a spineless little
    worm deserving nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are a jerk,
    a cad, a weasel. Your life is a monument to stupidity. You are a
    stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

    You are a bleating foal, a curdled staggering mutant dwarf smeared
    richly with the effluvia and offal accompanying your alleged birth
    into a hostile world. You are an insensate, blinking calf,
    meaningful to nobody, abandoned by the puke-drooling, giggling
    beasts who sired you and then died of shame in recognition of what
    they had done. They were a bit late.

    I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same
    species as you. You are a monster, an ogre, a malformity. I barf
    at the very thought of you. You have all the appeal of a paper cut.
    Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than nothing. You
    are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. And did I mention
    that you smell?
    You snail-skulled little rabbit. Would that a hawk pick you up,
    drive its beak into your brain, and upon finding it rancid set
    you loose to fly briefly before spattering

  4. The problem isn't with XML... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    The problem is that a vocal minority either haven't taken the time to understand how XML works, or aren't trying to use it appropriately.

    I'm not saying XML as it is today is perfect, but it's broadened my skill as a web developer and has allowed me to help my company do things it was only imagining 2 years ago.

    [ Reply to This ]

  5. Re: of course there is!! by borgdows · · Score: 0, Troll

    In SOVIET RUSSIA, XML standardizes YOU!! Let's bomb the french! Anyway, XML is for loosers!

  6. Re:xml by mystery_boy_x · · Score: 1, Troll

    XML was never intended to be a replacement for HTML or anything else.

    XML is fundamentally very simple and easy to understand. It is only DOM and other such atrocities that make it hideous. DOM is a prime example of how to make a technology designed for simplicity and flexibility and turn it into a hideous morass.

    --
    I am not a lawyer but my sister is, so don't mess with me
  7. ==(,,,)==D too hard for programmers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    that's the stuff

  8. Re:Meta XML by ftobin · · Score: 0, Troll

    First, you forgot to quote your attributes, so what you specified is not well-formed XML. Second, most people would argue that you should not be putting 'real' data in attributes, but rather in elements.