-----Original Message----- From: TDWG - Structure of Descriptive Data [mailto:TDWG-SDD@usobi.org]On Behalf Of Una Smith Sent: 01 September 2000 13:18 To: TDWG-SDD@usobi.org Subject: Re: Draft Spec mark 2

On Fri, 1 Sep 2000, Erik Westlin wrote:

...

Plant descriptive data is much to complex to be captured in XML which is more geared towards presentation than representation.

I'll second that. I use LaTeX, and previously used a precursor to SGML, to typeset all my printed documents. These *typesetting* languages are great for defining the appearance of the content of documents, but they are utterly inadequate for representing the content (ie., data) itself.

XML is *not* a typesetting language. Its a meta-language for defining other languages, just as SGML was. It is *not* limited to describing documents, and its far from being a limited to describing layout.

My own doodlings with XML and Taxonomic data [1] shows that the DELTA format can be expressed as XML without loss of information.

Its probably too early to get mired in syntax discussions - at present it may be better to assume that all examples merely that - not formal proposals for how the serialised data should look.

The model is the important issue at the moment. Once that is nearing completion, decisions on a serialisation syntax (XML or something else) can then be made in highlight of concrete examples and data.

Personally speaking, I'd be surprised if there were aspects of a taxonomic data model which *couldn't* be adequately expressed in XML. At most I'd expect there to be some contortions in the syntax, rather than a complete inability to represent the data. The question is then, how much does the syntactic 'sugar' outweigh the network effect of embracing a standard like XML.

My 2p.

[1]. http://www.ldodds.com/delta/index.html

L.

-- Leigh Dodds, Systems Architect | "Pluralitas non est ponenda http://weblogs.userland.com/eclectic | sine necessitate" http://www.xml.com/pub/xmldeviant | -- William of Ockham