Buying the hardware froms scratch will cost you $2k to $2.5k so $2500 is not a lot of money for such a solution.
However.....
My experience is that *all* small business POS software sucks at the moment. This incudes all open source POS software. Braindead application design, poor approaches to maintenance and support, and a lack of attention to data integrity concerns are big issues in these solutions. I haven't found one program I like yet. I *hope* LedgerSMB will be such a solution we can really be proud of in a year, but you should see the codebase we inherited from SQL-Ledger....
Right. One of the major goals of the LedgerSMB project (which includes a POS module) is to provide a system which stores al your information in a good, normalized format in an open database (PostgreSQL, since it has one of the best track records of open source database regarding data integrity).
A few notes (I have experience implementing this sort of system):
Hardware budget is probably going to be in the $2k - $3k range per register. Software, setup, and services budget will likely be in the $2k range. That is $4-$5k for one register with good hardware. Could even be more.
You probably won't save much money by going open source here, indeed you might actually end up paying more. However, you will get something that can be customized down the road to do exactly what you need (for a price, of course) so this doesn't mean that you need to abandon the open source idea.
However, where you are likely to save money is in the long-run if you choose a program which will be constantly maintained. In general a good support contract on an open source program may not cost as much as the proprietary package plus good support. Remember this is money you are dealing with.
BTW, LedgerSMB has a decent POS module for retain environments. It is a little bit of a pain to set up but so is L'ane and at least we don't store large amounts of client-side code in the database.... (We also don't refuse to send out security patches to general users and we have a better release cycle than L'ane.)
There can be reasons to change. YOu do need to ensure that they are valid though. They can include better management of data, etc.
Also if your old software is no longer supported, you cannot connect it with anything which processes credit cards and still fall under safe harbor from the CC companies.
But the key is that you want to ensure you get support from people who will continue to be there for you. This means working with companies who do have a track record (like Metatron Technology Consulting) to ensure that this is done right and that you have continuing support in the future.
Larger businesses with internal IT staff may find this to be less of a challenge though.
Correct, but you still need to be PCI-DSS compliant. Compliance and certification are different issues. If you have a problem and are not compliant, then you have substantial liability to Visa/Mastercard.
Interesting book. And I would recomment Freelock consulting too (John's company).
One of the projects not in the book (because we were developed after the book came out) was LedgerSMB. As of 1.3, we will have OpenOffice, Excel, and CSV export options, scanner inputs, credit card interfaces, and more.
Ok, I am not on the jury, so I don't know what has gone on beyond the various sources of courtroom reporting I have looked into.
One of the issues I am seeing is that there is not clear indication if a crime has been committed or what it is. Yes, it looks like Hans is probably guilty from what I am reading, but "probably guilty" isn't enough to convict in this country. At least with Lacy Peterson, there was a body, and enough evidence to put Scott in the area at the time of her death. Here we don't even know beyond a doubt that Nina is dead (she probably is, but we don't know for certain). Even if she is, a lot of key evidence doesn't point at Hans.
So all you have is what appears to be guilty knowledge. That is not enough to convict in my view. This is what I concluded when the prosecution rested.
"In theory, theory and practice are the same, In practice, nobody implements theory properly."
In my experience most of the problems with people trying to design from theory is that they either get the wrong theories or implement them badly. Take 5NF for example. 5NF is a great idea, and ideally all databases should normalize to it.
THe problem is-- determining data dependencies to the point that 5NF is provable tends to be something people have a hard time doing. Hence a lot of attempts to do this end up with screwed up database designs. THis is not because of issues with 5NF but rather because of DBA's who don't understand the math or don't understand the data.
In other news, the US has kindly asked all nations with ICBMS not to attack parts of the country with substandard weather. In particular, a request was made not to target Seattle...
You would need to demonstrate that the total loss of energy (after any removed from the equation by the insulation on the tank) would be enough to:
1) Melt all the Hydrazine 2) Heat it to boiling point 3) Boil it enough to produce sufficient pressure to rupture the tank
More than likely you would get some vaporization in the tank, but I would think it would be survivable because the heat from that would be absorbed by the remaining hydrazine and this would cause it to condense.
Noting that some iron meteors end up with cold cores when they impact, I suspect that the tanks would have likely survived.
Of course it is more complicated than this-- you still have issues like stresses from travelling through the air at a rapid speed, but I don;t think that one can say that the tanks were sure to rupture.
My understanding (IANAL) is that you own the copyrights from the moment of creation. However, to have standing in court, you have to register them prior to seeking action (not prior to infringemnet). You are also limited to actual rather than statutory damages for the period of time between creation and registration.
Of course, I have effectively enforced non-registered copyrights before by applying political rather than legal pressure, so enforcement and legal action might be seen as somewhat separate areas.
What does Science have to say about Plato's ideas of Forms?....
Oh, and I disagree with you regarding the understanding of what religion should be. I suspect that Buddhists, Quakers, and to a lesser extent Hindus* would probably agree with me. Furthermore, my understanding of Bohr's rebuttle to Einstein's "God does not play dice" argument was to suggest that natural language was inadequate to describe God anyway, so it seems that this idea is not too far removed from something top scientists have believed too.
* Hinduism here is a little tricky because they, like the Platonists would suggest that the metaphors are "more real" than the scientific data-- that Varuna even as a metaphor is "more real" than the french fries you had for lunch. To some extent it depends on how you define reality.
If you read my latest journal entry, you will see that I suspect that traditional religions around the world saw religion as I do, and that it is limited number of traditions (including the Abrahamic ones which were born in traditions of literate scripture) have this problem. That still leaves Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. with a problem, but it is hardly the only view of religion out there. Certainly not enough to suggest that my idea is simply just a fringe redefinition of the word.
Ok, suppose I take PostgreSQL, make no copyright-worthy changes and re-release under the GPL v3 (including of course its BSD license in the source files). I am therefore representing to you that I can control what you do with the software. Note that even Mr Moglen agrees that I wouldn't likely have standing to sue if I did this and you took the copy you got from me and reverted the license. This creates a number of issues that I think are problematic (IANAL):
1) Do I have the right to claim copyright over this (nobody I have talked to suggests I do)? If not might this be actionable by the original project under other matters (tortuous interference and the like)? Might it also indicate a slander of title (saying that I own something when in fact I don't)?
2) For downstream users, does this raise truth-in-advertising concerns? Might there be problems there?
IANAL, so a lot of this is in the context of listening to a lot of other lawyers talk.
I think the document seems to be a reasonable summary of the concensus view in a lot of cases. I think it is a good read.
There are a few areas where I would prefer to see more detail (it is my understanding that prior to pursuing legal action for copyright infringement, one must register the copyrights but this may be different than enforcement as other forms of leverage may be applied in those cases).
One thing I thought was particularly well put forward was the patent section and the question as whether to apply for patents. The key thing I have heard from patent lawyers is that unless you intend to monetize an invention in a major way, it is not worth applying for a patent for the simple reason that patent enforcement is difficult and expensive.
Part of the issue is that the FSF-types have a rather odd interpretation of the BSD-like license. In their view, if you release a work under that license, I can take that work and change the license without adding a single line of code. Interestingly, I have never met a developer who actually read and used the license to take that interpretation with the exception of one large company who used it for reference implementations.
Most developers using this license interpret it instead as allowing other people to add copyrighted elements (thus creating derivative works) which can carry additional restrictions, but that the verbatim work cannot be relicensed. Nearly all lawyers I have met outside the FSF proper have also held this view (main exceptions being Eben Moglen who is involved in the FSF and Larry Rosen who isn't). IANAL.
Under the FSF view, the license change of the Ath5k drivers for Linux from BSD to GPL was perfectly legal. In the BSD developer's view it was not.
In general, I have found the SFLC folk seem divided about whether the FSF interpretation of that license is correct or whether the license addresses all third-party recipients of copyrighted elements released under such a license.
I dunno. I think it is more accurate to say that some have biased ties to the FSF. I have found many (though certainly not all) of the SFLC to be a lot more level-headed in this regard.
I haven't had a chance to discuss real contentious issues with Mr Kuhn, but we have talked about some other issues and he seems reasonable. Of course he seems like someone who is more of a community activist and as far as I can tell not a lawyer, and I am sure I disagree with him on things like whether the AGPL is Free enough but that is life....
One thing I would say for the SFLC is that they clearly have areas where there is a great diversity of opinion (this is good and bad).
For example, I have had the opportuntity to pose the following question:
If I copy a BSD-licensed file into a GPL v3 project, Does the GPL v3 require that this particular BSD-license allow the file to have its license changed to the GPL in the mere course of copying the file?
Eben Moglen says yes, and thinks the BSD-license only requires that the file was once licensed under that license and so this is possible. I.e. only the notice of the license (as mentioned in the license) not the actual permissions need be passed on (by what does "... is permitted provided that..." mean in this context?)
Richard Fontana states no, and thinks the BSD-license does not permit this because the BSD-license only allows for new copyrighted elements to carry additional restrictions, not for new restrictions to be extended to elements merely used with the permission of the original author.
I suspect that Fontana's points are more closely reflected in the official SFLC advice that licenses to BSD-licensed files only are done after substantial modification and hence is more likely to be correct as it fits with my lay interpretation of copyright law better. Furthermore after in-depth discussions with many individuals who license their works under BSD-like licenses, I have come to the conclusion that this is the correct answer.
I do wish the SFLC woudl address the question of the scope of the GPL v3 section 7 but I suspect with this sort of difference of opinion, the courts will get to it first....
Some licenses (particularly long ones like the GPL v3) may need to be read many times, argued with many lawyers, etc. before one can even hope to have even a partial understanding of it....
Postulating" the lack of existence of a creator isn't a positive claim; it's the default when the reverse position doesn't have any evidence for it. Ok, here is where your epistomology breaks down a bit.
Suppose we go back to the earliest days of experiments with static electricity. Suppose someone comes up with a theory that little particles are removed from one of the items and deposited on the other, causing an imbalance which causes the attraction. Suppose this person named these particles after the Greek word for amber, since ths was the substance he thought they came from (), this would be inscientific but that wouldn't prevent it from being a pretty accurate description of what is actually happening.
So unscientific assertions are not necessarily false. They just aren't sceintifically true. They are rather unknowable given the current state of scientific knowledge. Hence "that is unscientific" doesn't mean "that is false," it just means that you cannot scientifically say that it is true.
NOMA has been taken apart quite thoroughly by a lot of other people, so I won't even try addressing it here. The problem with NOMA has to do with the approach people take with religion, and to a lesser extent with science, extending them beyond where they can be solid. Furthermore, the various arrogant views that a singular religious position developed by a few people in one part of the world is somehow the only correct interpretation makes the problem largely unsolvable. However, refuting religion does not necessarily equate with refuting the basis of religion.
My view of religion is that most of the major religions of the world today have taken arrogant positions which lead to fundamental philosophical problems. For example, if accepting Christ is necessary for redemption, and one can only do this by being a Christian, why would God condemn people largely by accident of birth (the vast majority of people follow the religions of their parents).
Instead, I see religion as containing a language of an inner part of the self. In essence there is no true religion anymore than there is a true language-- that the ideas expressed rather than the dogmas are what are important and that these may be similar and yet different as you move from tradition to tradition. Religion thus ideally concerned with metaphores relating to the inner world and human experience and condition rather than the outer world and objectively reproducable events.
I would argue that since we are all individuals, inner (psychological) matters are inherently at least somewhat non-reproduceable. Hence they are at least partially outside the domain of science. Furthermore science may help us make great art but it cannot define great art. Hence there are a number of other areas of human experience which are outside that domain. I would put religion in the same category as art in this case.
I do not think that religion tells us how the natural world physically works-- religion works in metaphores and so can only provide some guidance as to how to get along in life, and how to appriciate the fullness of human experience.
Hence the solutions to the problems of NOMA have to do with appropriately scoping religion and science so that they don't in fact potentially overlap. One of the problems with suggesting that science asserts that there is no God is that this assertion violates Science's own methodological approach in order to purposfully arive in such conflict. As you say strictly speaking, science is agnostic. Since Science's methodological approach limits itself, the key thing is to approach sound reasoning to the question of the limits of religion and come up with reasonable and sound answers.
Ok, the issues I mentioned above are limited to documentation.
On the issue of web services, yes, XML brings some value and this can be justified (we are looking at RESTful web services).
So I am left to conclude that XML is good as: 1) A program-neutral method of structured information interchange 2) A program-neutral format for object serialization such that it could be transformed into other programs' object models.
I dont think it is really useful for anything very far outside of either of the above issues.
In the LedgerSMB community (and even the core team) the merit of XML have been a matter of relatively perpetual debate. In general this means that it becomes important to justify the value that XML brings to things.
Personally, I have fought against the idea that our documentation should be moved to DocBook XML as the master format. My major concerns are that: 1) It doesnt buy us any format support since LaTeX (the current format of the master) can be converted into DocBook XML 5 using tex4ht. 2) Signal to noise ratio in XML vs LaTeX is *far* lower. 3) Verbosity introduces opportunities for error. 4) Semantically, LaTeX is richer than DocBook XML is, and although you can convert Docbook to LaTeX losslessly, you can't convert even the semantic elements from LaTeX to DocBook losslessly. For example, LaTeX tables and floats both map to Docbook floats.
My concern about Java and XML have to do with the way Java internally represents text. Yes, I know it is popular with the buzzword-driven businesses and those businesses with historic ties to Sun, but it is also grossly inefficient and as you say something to be used as sparingly as possible in that environment.
I am not sure about config files, however. I think the.ini file format was actually good because it was simple and didn't raise the semantic issues that XML does. However, I have also seen issues where people use.ini files where XML would have been more appropriate (I saw someone try to do arbitrary depth menues using a.ini file).
Slashdot Mirror
Here are some basic observations:
Buying the hardware froms scratch will cost you $2k to $2.5k so $2500 is not a lot of money for such a solution.
However.....
My experience is that *all* small business POS software sucks at the moment. This incudes all open source POS software. Braindead application design, poor approaches to maintenance and support, and a lack of attention to data integrity concerns are big issues in these solutions. I haven't found one program I like yet. I *hope* LedgerSMB will be such a solution we can really be proud of in a year, but you should see the codebase we inherited from SQL-Ledger....
Right. One of the major goals of the LedgerSMB project (which includes a POS module) is to provide a system which stores al your information in a good, normalized format in an open database (PostgreSQL, since it has one of the best track records of open source database regarding data integrity).
A few notes (I have experience implementing this sort of system):
Hardware budget is probably going to be in the $2k - $3k range per register.
Software, setup, and services budget will likely be in the $2k range.
That is $4-$5k for one register with good hardware. Could even be more.
You probably won't save much money by going open source here, indeed you might actually end up paying more. However, you will get something that can be customized down the road to do exactly what you need (for a price, of course) so this doesn't mean that you need to abandon the open source idea.
However, where you are likely to save money is in the long-run if you choose a program which will be constantly maintained. In general a good support contract on an open source program may not cost as much as the proprietary package plus good support. Remember this is money you are dealing with.
BTW, LedgerSMB has a decent POS module for retain environments. It is a little bit of a pain to set up but so is L'ane and at least we don't store large amounts of client-side code in the database.... (We also don't refuse to send out security patches to general users and we have a better release cycle than L'ane.)
Sure, of you can get a support contract from a company which supports your software.
Novel concept, that.... My company (Metatron Technology Consulting) supports many of these sorts of solutions.
There can be reasons to change. YOu do need to ensure that they are valid though. They can include better management of data, etc.
Also if your old software is no longer supported, you cannot connect it with anything which processes credit cards and still fall under safe harbor from the CC companies.
But the key is that you want to ensure you get support from people who will continue to be there for you. This means working with companies who do have a track record (like Metatron Technology Consulting) to ensure that this is done right and that you have continuing support in the future.
Larger businesses with internal IT staff may find this to be less of a challenge though.
Correct, but you still need to be PCI-DSS compliant. Compliance and certification are different issues. If you have a problem and are not compliant, then you have substantial liability to Visa/Mastercard.
One of the projects not in the book (because we were developed after the book came out) was LedgerSMB. As of 1.3, we will have OpenOffice, Excel, and CSV export options, scanner inputs, credit card interfaces, and more.
Hope this helps.
Ok, I am not on the jury, so I don't know what has gone on beyond the various sources of courtroom reporting I have looked into.
One of the issues I am seeing is that there is not clear indication if a crime has been committed or what it is. Yes, it looks like Hans is probably guilty from what I am reading, but "probably guilty" isn't enough to convict in this country. At least with Lacy Peterson, there was a body, and enough evidence to put Scott in the area at the time of her death. Here we don't even know beyond a doubt that Nina is dead (she probably is, but we don't know for certain). Even if she is, a lot of key evidence doesn't point at Hans.
So all you have is what appears to be guilty knowledge. That is not enough to convict in my view. This is what I concluded when the prosecution rested.
wireless communications?
GIFI stands for Generan Index of Financial Information, and is a system used in many countries to map bookkeeping accounts to tax categories.
"In theory, theory and practice are the same,
In practice, nobody implements theory properly."
In my experience most of the problems with people trying to design from theory is that they either get the wrong theories or implement them badly. Take 5NF for example. 5NF is a great idea, and ideally all databases should normalize to it.
THe problem is-- determining data dependencies to the point that 5NF is provable tends to be something people have a hard time doing. Hence a lot of attempts to do this end up with screwed up database designs. THis is not because of issues with 5NF but rather because of DBA's who don't understand the math or don't understand the data.
In other news, the US has kindly asked all nations with ICBMS not to attack parts of the country with substandard weather. In particular, a request was made not to target Seattle...
You would need to demonstrate that the total loss of energy (after any removed from the equation by the insulation on the tank) would be enough to:
1) Melt all the Hydrazine
2) Heat it to boiling point
3) Boil it enough to produce sufficient pressure to rupture the tank
More than likely you would get some vaporization in the tank, but I would think it would be survivable because the heat from that would be absorbed by the remaining hydrazine and this would cause it to condense.
Noting that some iron meteors end up with cold cores when they impact, I suspect that the tanks would have likely survived.
Of course it is more complicated than this-- you still have issues like stresses from travelling through the air at a rapid speed, but I don;t think that one can say that the tanks were sure to rupture.
Going after piracy cases leads to terrorist organizations-- you know, organizations which terrorize people.
What they mean is that going after piracy helps bolster one of these organizations, known as the RIAA.....
My understanding (IANAL) is that you own the copyrights from the moment of creation. However, to have standing in court, you have to register them prior to seeking action (not prior to infringemnet). You are also limited to actual rather than statutory damages for the period of time between creation and registration.
Of course, I have effectively enforced non-registered copyrights before by applying political rather than legal pressure, so enforcement and legal action might be seen as somewhat separate areas.
Ok, then:
....
What does Science have to say about Plato's ideas of Forms?
Oh, and I disagree with you regarding the understanding of what religion should be. I suspect that Buddhists, Quakers, and to a lesser extent Hindus* would probably agree with me. Furthermore, my understanding of Bohr's rebuttle to Einstein's "God does not play dice" argument was to suggest that natural language was inadequate to describe God anyway, so it seems that this idea is not too far removed from something top scientists have believed too.
* Hinduism here is a little tricky because they, like the Platonists would suggest that the metaphors are "more real" than the scientific data-- that Varuna even as a metaphor is "more real" than the french fries you had for lunch. To some extent it depends on how you define reality.
If you read my latest journal entry, you will see that I suspect that traditional religions around the world saw religion as I do, and that it is limited number of traditions (including the Abrahamic ones which were born in traditions of literate scripture) have this problem. That still leaves Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. with a problem, but it is hardly the only view of religion out there. Certainly not enough to suggest that my idea is simply just a fringe redefinition of the word.
Ok, suppose I take PostgreSQL, make no copyright-worthy changes and re-release under the GPL v3 (including of course its BSD license in the source files). I am therefore representing to you that I can control what you do with the software. Note that even Mr Moglen agrees that I wouldn't likely have standing to sue if I did this and you took the copy you got from me and reverted the license. This creates a number of issues that I think are problematic (IANAL):
1) Do I have the right to claim copyright over this (nobody I have talked to suggests I do)? If not might this be actionable by the original project under other matters (tortuous interference and the like)? Might it also indicate a slander of title (saying that I own something when in fact I don't)?
2) For downstream users, does this raise truth-in-advertising concerns? Might there be problems there?
IANAL, so a lot of this is in the context of listening to a lot of other lawyers talk.
I think the document seems to be a reasonable summary of the concensus view in a lot of cases. I think it is a good read.
There are a few areas where I would prefer to see more detail (it is my understanding that prior to pursuing legal action for copyright infringement, one must register the copyrights but this may be different than enforcement as other forms of leverage may be applied in those cases).
One thing I thought was particularly well put forward was the patent section and the question as whether to apply for patents. The key thing I have heard from patent lawyers is that unless you intend to monetize an invention in a major way, it is not worth applying for a patent for the simple reason that patent enforcement is difficult and expensive.
Part of the issue is that the FSF-types have a rather odd interpretation of the BSD-like license. In their view, if you release a work under that license, I can take that work and change the license without adding a single line of code. Interestingly, I have never met a developer who actually read and used the license to take that interpretation with the exception of one large company who used it for reference implementations.
Most developers using this license interpret it instead as allowing other people to add copyrighted elements (thus creating derivative works) which can carry additional restrictions, but that the verbatim work cannot be relicensed. Nearly all lawyers I have met outside the FSF proper have also held this view (main exceptions being Eben Moglen who is involved in the FSF and Larry Rosen who isn't). IANAL.
Under the FSF view, the license change of the Ath5k drivers for Linux from BSD to GPL was perfectly legal. In the BSD developer's view it was not.
In general, I have found the SFLC folk seem divided about whether the FSF interpretation of that license is correct or whether the license addresses all third-party recipients of copyrighted elements released under such a license.
I dunno. I think it is more accurate to say that some have biased ties to the FSF. I have found many (though certainly not all) of the SFLC to be a lot more level-headed in this regard.
I haven't had a chance to discuss real contentious issues with Mr Kuhn, but we have talked about some other issues and he seems reasonable. Of course he seems like someone who is more of a community activist and as far as I can tell not a lawyer, and I am sure I disagree with him on things like whether the AGPL is Free enough but that is life....
One thing I would say for the SFLC is that they clearly have areas where there is a great diversity of opinion (this is good and bad).
For example, I have had the opportuntity to pose the following question:
If I copy a BSD-licensed file into a GPL v3 project, Does the GPL v3 require that this particular BSD-license allow the file to have its license changed to the GPL in the mere course of copying the file?
Eben Moglen says yes, and thinks the BSD-license only requires that the file was once licensed under that license and so this is possible. I.e. only the notice of the license (as mentioned in the license) not the actual permissions need be passed on (by what does "... is permitted provided that..." mean in this context?)
Richard Fontana states no, and thinks the BSD-license does not permit this because the BSD-license only allows for new copyrighted elements to carry additional restrictions, not for new restrictions to be extended to elements merely used with the permission of the original author.
I suspect that Fontana's points are more closely reflected in the official SFLC advice that licenses to BSD-licensed files only are done after substantial modification and hence is more likely to be correct as it fits with my lay interpretation of copyright law better. Furthermore after in-depth discussions with many individuals who license their works under BSD-like licenses, I have come to the conclusion that this is the correct answer.
I do wish the SFLC woudl address the question of the scope of the GPL v3 section 7 but I suspect with this sort of difference of opinion, the courts will get to it first....
Some licenses (particularly long ones like the GPL v3) may need to be read many times, argued with many lawyers, etc. before one can even hope to have even a partial understanding of it....
IANALE
Suppose we go back to the earliest days of experiments with static electricity. Suppose someone comes up with a theory that little particles are removed from one of the items and deposited on the other, causing an imbalance which causes the attraction. Suppose this person named these particles after the Greek word for amber, since ths was the substance he thought they came from (), this would be inscientific but that wouldn't prevent it from being a pretty accurate description of what is actually happening.
So unscientific assertions are not necessarily false. They just aren't sceintifically true. They are rather unknowable given the current state of scientific knowledge. Hence "that is unscientific" doesn't mean "that is false," it just means that you cannot scientifically say that it is true. NOMA has been taken apart quite thoroughly by a lot of other people, so I won't even try addressing it here. The problem with NOMA has to do with the approach people take with religion, and to a lesser extent with science, extending them beyond where they can be solid. Furthermore, the various arrogant views that a singular religious position developed by a few people in one part of the world is somehow the only correct interpretation makes the problem largely unsolvable. However, refuting religion does not necessarily equate with refuting the basis of religion.
My view of religion is that most of the major religions of the world today have taken arrogant positions which lead to fundamental philosophical problems. For example, if accepting Christ is necessary for redemption, and one can only do this by being a Christian, why would God condemn people largely by accident of birth (the vast majority of people follow the religions of their parents).
Instead, I see religion as containing a language of an inner part of the self. In essence there is no true religion anymore than there is a true language-- that the ideas expressed rather than the dogmas are what are important and that these may be similar and yet different as you move from tradition to tradition. Religion thus ideally concerned with metaphores relating to the inner world and human experience and condition rather than the outer world and objectively reproducable events.
I would argue that since we are all individuals, inner (psychological) matters are inherently at least somewhat non-reproduceable. Hence they are at least partially outside the domain of science. Furthermore science may help us make great art but it cannot define great art. Hence there are a number of other areas of human experience which are outside that domain. I would put religion in the same category as art in this case.
I do not think that religion tells us how the natural world physically works-- religion works in metaphores and so can only provide some guidance as to how to get along in life, and how to appriciate the fullness of human experience.
Hence the solutions to the problems of NOMA have to do with appropriately scoping religion and science so that they don't in fact potentially overlap. One of the problems with suggesting that science asserts that there is no God is that this assertion violates Science's own methodological approach in order to purposfully arive in such conflict. As you say strictly speaking, science is agnostic. Since Science's methodological approach limits itself, the key thing is to approach sound reasoning to the question of the limits of religion and come up with reasonable and sound answers.
Ok, the issues I mentioned above are limited to documentation.
On the issue of web services, yes, XML brings some value and this can be justified (we are looking at RESTful web services).
So I am left to conclude that XML is good as:
1) A program-neutral method of structured information interchange
2) A program-neutral format for object serialization such that it could be transformed into other programs' object models.
I dont think it is really useful for anything very far outside of either of the above issues.
I dunno.....
In the LedgerSMB community (and even the core team) the merit of XML have been a matter of relatively perpetual debate. In general this means that it becomes important to justify the value that XML brings to things.
Personally, I have fought against the idea that our documentation should be moved to DocBook XML as the master format. My major concerns are that:
1) It doesnt buy us any format support since LaTeX (the current format of the master) can be converted into DocBook XML 5 using tex4ht.
2) Signal to noise ratio in XML vs LaTeX is *far* lower.
3) Verbosity introduces opportunities for error.
4) Semantically, LaTeX is richer than DocBook XML is, and although you can convert Docbook to LaTeX losslessly, you can't convert even the semantic elements from LaTeX to DocBook losslessly. For example, LaTeX tables and floats both map to Docbook floats.
My concern about Java and XML have to do with the way Java internally represents text. Yes, I know it is popular with the buzzword-driven businesses and those businesses with historic ties to Sun, but it is also grossly inefficient and as you say something to be used as sparingly as possible in that environment.
.ini file format was actually good because it was simple and didn't raise the semantic issues that XML does. However, I have also seen issues where people use .ini files where XML would have been more appropriate (I saw someone try to do arbitrary depth menues using a .ini file).
I am not sure about config files, however. I think the