Re: [xml-dev] Does WTSIWYG make simplicity moot?

Anthony Coates wrote
> ... don't give me this old line about viewing the source being
> the only true and pure way to do things.  

Paul Prescod wrote
> I think that it is a fallacy that visual is always easier than textual. 

From: Joe English [mailto:] 
> A point-and-click IDE might be an effective way
> to assemble a working application from prepackaged
> components, but that isn't programming.  I believe
> something similar is true for schema design.

From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <>
> Elitist. :-)

Maybe there are two tribes:
 
 * one sees XML as a way to allow custom syntax-constraining GUIs
   manipulating objects not code.
 * the other sees XML as a way to *escape* from requiring custom GUIs,
   preferring generic syntax-aware (text- and symbol- and tree-/list-/table- based) tools.

Proponents of the first view might say "WXS is great, because now I have a
clear set of components that I can make icons for and put in a pallette".  Proponents
of the second view might say "the WXS language is badly designed, because its inheritence
structures rely on non-standard reference mechanisms that a generic XML editor
cannot use."   

Perhaps it should be a business question rather than an abstract one.  Custom GUIs
cost time and money and need a maintenance effort; they have a bad name for being
slow, poor with large documents, and inflexible. But sometimes that might be warranted
(i.e. for cashed-up departments,  very static document types--like successful public schemas--, 
and small documents).  However, by the same token, sometimes custom GUIs may be 
counter-productive.

Cheers
Rick Jelliffe