3 ms·

I suppose this is going to become part of the HN lexicon now...

• a4isms 5y ago
  In a rant that was (at one time) legendary, the late Erik Naggum responded to the argument that XML was nothing more than another way to write s-exprs, and if you like s-exprs, the only quibble you have with XML is the syntax. Erik wrote, They are not identical. The aspects you are willing to ignore are more important than the aspects you are willing to accept. He went on to write a great deal more that I am not willing to quote, but at its core was this same argument: Sometimes two things seem very similar, but the ways in which they are similar are unimportant, and the ways in which they differ are profound. My guess is that little aphorisms like this will come into and out of fashion over and over again, because this argument is one we will have over and over again. https://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum-xmlrant.html https://www.schnada.de/grapt/eriknaggum-xmlrant.html