At 10:16 AM 15/01/02 -0500, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
> At 2:52 PM +0100 1/15/02, Jens Jakob Andersen, PDI wrote:
> >I think that it is fair to conclude now, that XML is _not_ any more selfdescribing than e.
g. CSV files.
> 
> That's ridiculous. XML absolutely is more self-describing than CSV. Nothing here has proven
 otherwise.  

I can see JJAndersen's point.  XML is self-*labeling*... i.e. the
various chunks of data are labeled, and the labels are right there
so you don't need to go anywhere else to find the labels.  I think
this is one of XML's important virtues.  

I can see Elliote's point too, but claiming "self-describing" 
potentially gets you on the slippery slope to claiming that
markup encodes semantics, which is a very dangerous place to
be. -Tim


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