[mgp-users 01172] Re: Sam's Improvements; my MGP macro processor

[Sam Steingold <sds@gnu.org>]

> * In message <>
> * On the subject of "[mgp-users 01171] Re: Sam's Improvements; my MGP macro processor"
> * Sent on Fri, 30 May 2003 00:29:06 -0700 (PDT)
> * Honorable Yoshifumi Nishida <nishida@csl.sony.co.jp> writes:
>
>  > > It's interesting how the type system trade-off between expressiveness
>  > > and verification seems to follow through to file formats. :) I think
>  > > that I would rather lose the complete unambiguity in exchange for the
>  > > ease of being able to hit tab instead of typing '<point level="n">'
>  > > into my presentation many times.
>  > 
>  > You _are_ a Perl aficionado, aren't you?
> 
> I believe this kind of thing is like religious and we cannot say which
> one is better. So, I personally believe at the moment that the golden
> goal is to support both ways.

IMNSHO, people who say "I would rather lose the complete unambiguity in
exchange for..." [doesn't matter what!] give the bad name to the
profession of a Computer Scientist or Software Engineer or whatever you
call it.

Giving the users an ambiguous data format is like giving them a gun to
shoot themselves in the foot.

If the people want brevity, they can achieve it with some wrapper or
filter or front-end or whatever.

But the official preferred format must be completely unambiguous.
I don't care whether it is XML or some other incarnation of the good
old S-exp.  All I care is that I can speak and be understood.

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running RedHat9 GNU/Linux
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