Re: The illusion of simplicity and low cost in data design and computing

Roger L Costello <[email protected]> writes:

> Liam Quin wrote:
>
>> Putting the applications before the documents
>> is the wrong way round.
>
> I don't understand what that means. Would you (Liam or anyone) explain what this means please?

I may be wrong, but for what it's worth I take Liam to be saying that
identifying a file exclusively with a particular piece of software
implicitly assumes that the software is the important thing and that the
data are incidental to the software.  It inhibits and penalizes reuse of
data, because opening the file with any other application requires extra
work.  (And may or may not be possible.)

Identifying files by their format rather than by the piece of software
that wrote them, on the other hand, implicitly assumes that the same
information may be usable by more than one piece of software.

The one reflects a programmer-centric view of computing, the other an
information-centric or data-centric view.  I take Liam to be saying that
the latter is better.

On that question, I think Liam is correct.  But I sometimes think I care
more about avoiding lockin to specific software than some other people
do.  I like to think that when I create a document, I am the owner of
that document.  If there only one piece of software that can read and
process the document, however, a good case can be made that it is the
proprietors of that software who really own my document.  I don't like
the idea of my documents being owned by people whose interests diverge
so thoroughly from mine; that is why I prefer to create my documents
using open standards which help ensure that I am never at the mercy of a
particular vendor, to get access to my documents.

-- 
C. M. Sperberg-McQueen
Black Mesa Technologies LLC
http://blackmesatech.com

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