[Gllug] Getting Linux to work with Freeserve (Wanadoo) Broadband

[Nix]

On Tue, 6 Jul 2004, Bruce Richardson mused:
> On Tue, Jul 06, 2004 at 06:05:21PM +0100, Nix wrote:
>> 
>> And for any other application of XML, we have s-expressions: less
>> redundant, less ambiguous, easier to read, *and* easier to parse.
> 
> http://www.prescod.net/xml/sexprs.html

What a heap of nonsense.

So XML is better than sexps because it looks more like HTML? Circular
argument: see argument, circular.

It's better because it's more redundant and that redundancy can be used
to eliminate ambiguities? Yeah, in theory; in practice, every XML parser
I've ever seen uses it as an excuse to stop parsing earlier, particularly
when the content of the file being parsed actually matters. The only
parsers which use that ambiguity are web browser ones, and they default
to interpreting tag soup, not XML or HTML at all.

The only point he's got which makes a bit of sense is the default-is-
text-not-markup one, and even there it's debatable: it depends on what
you want to do with the document, and if it's machine-generated from
lots of pieces the Lisp form may make sense. (Alternate readers can
fix even that, of course, changing the stard and end-quote characters
to something really unlikely to occur in a normal document.)


The `Lisp standards are maintained in LaTeX not s-expressions' is just
idiotic: yeah, so the Lisp standards are maintained in a format designed
for writing documents in. How horrifying. Just because sexps and XML are
equivalent doesn't mean that sexps are better than all other formats
ever for all purposes. They're just better than XML for virtually any
purpose XML is currently used for (particularly configuration files,
*shudder*).


He nowhere disproves the point that XML is not a verbose form of sexps,
nor even attempts to: he merely asserts it and hopes you don't notice
the lack of disproof. Since the two are provably equivalent --- and
he indicates as much at the start of the document --- he starts by
disproving his own assertion. Impressive.


A dishonourable debater with a weak grasp of logic: he should be in
politics.

-- 
`Some people find it difficult to accept that it is not always possible
 to explain things which should be explicable.'
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