Where did XML come from?

Seems I might have been wrong about the roots of XML according to an interview with one of it's creators. Ho Hum.

2 B or not C of E

So I went to this excellent talk last night about the future of the Church for the next few years (Was originally going to be 10 but then got changed to 10-20 years) at the Blue Lion in Hardwick... nevermind!

The bloke doing the speaking was lovely, buggered if'n I can remember his name, he was taking over a Church after spending some time teaching priests - or so I gathered. He talked at some length about how the Church was actually growing in the context of the wider world but shrinking within Western Europe. Thing was, it was a proper C of E thing. Lovely for being so too, I think.

I love the C of E, I really do, it's the Church that our society needs and wants, it'll fall over if someone blows hard at it and get lost in committee for years over silly arguments and will absolutely refuse to take a stand... except that now it's getting involved in the whole nasty abortion question... a mistake in my opinion, a rather nasty mistake too!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm as averse to killing things as the next man (I'm a vegetarian after all... though I've got to make an exception to fish!) but if some 13 year old lass has been raped by her Dad and was too scared to see a medic until it was near 24 weeks then I'd be all for her not having to bear a possibly monstrous mewling infant that'll remind her of a crappy period forever more. Get the kid adopted, I hear you say? Well there are all sorts of consequences to breaking that genetic taboo, that's why it's a taboo after all...

There are all sorts of valid reasons for not changing the legislation, not least of which is that if there is a requirement for late abortions then someone will provide them, I'd prefer them to be done in a hospital rather than in an alley somewhere with a rusty knitting needle.

I just came across this while checking the 24 weeks thing I said above: "British Conservative Party leader Michael Howard said he would push to change the abortion restriction from the current 24 months gestation limit down to 20 weeks if elected Prime Minister in the next election.". Now, don't get me wrong but are they really saying that we can abort our children some year and a quarter after they are born ? A perfect reason to not vote conservative in my opinion.

Progress... sort of ;-)

Did lots of interesting things last night, got to grip with the calculator function of google and also did some heavy duty (for me) math with triangles. I quite liked that bit actually .

Doing the math I realized that I needed to draw over a series of images that I'd cobbled together into a table so I used the excellent JavaScript Graphics Library from the divine Walter Zorn, that man is just a wiz! And with that I was able to put a transparent div over the top of the table with the images in and so overlay a vector over a bitmap image, cool ehh? The page I made can be found here and details a lovely walk I took on Saturday last (Though I did get very knackered and I'm still recovering really).

SVG Beating Heart

The ancestor of the ASCII Heart (Of course, being SVG it might not work in YOUR browser):

Pretty ASCII heart

             XXXXXXXXX              XXXXXXXXX
          XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX        XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
        XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
      XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
      XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
     XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
     XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
     XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
     XXXX|    |XXX\       \   \X/   /\         /XXXXX
      XXX|    |XXXX/   |   \   Y   /XX|      )XXXXXX
       XX|    |XXX/    |    \     /XXX|        \XXX
       XX|        \         /\   /XXX/         /XXX
        XXXXXXXXX\/XXXXXXX\/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX\/XXX
         XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
          XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
           XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
             XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
              XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
                XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
                 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
                   XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
                     XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
                       XXXXXXXXXXXX
                        XXXXXXXXXX
                           XXXX
                            XX

For some strange reason I've got well into ascii art... again... actually I know why it is: I came across some ascii animations of spiderman while browsing a forum and was so caught up with the possibilities that I thought I'd have to have a try. The above is from a beating heart animation available here.

I've submitted an animated gif of the webpage to dA and you can find it here, I used a similar technique on a piece of knotwork and you can find the deviantArt link here and the original here.

Well I was talking about XML a while ago...

The article in the Guardian that I quoted from some time ago seemed to say that XML came about from work done on SGML and HTML but that isn't strictly true...

What actually happened was that XML was developed from the same route language as HTML, namely SGML, so it's relationship to the other two languages is more like the illustration below:

            +----------------------------------+
            |              SGML                |
            +--+-----------------+-------------+
               |                 |              
            +--+---+ +-----------+-------------+
            |      | |          XML            |
            |      | +-------------------------+
            |      |                            
            | HTML |                            
            |      |                            
            |      |                            
            |      |                            
            +------+                            

SGML was used by Tim Berners-Lee as a basis for the development of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) while he worked at CERN and was looking for a way in which scientists working on diverse hardware platforms would be able to share data in a universally accessible format over the infant internet. HTML represents a subset of SGML but it shares only the first feature of SGML - in that it allows the same documents to be read on different systems. It is not formally extensible and it does not enforce specific rules. To some extent it might be said that SGML is the father of both HTML and XML but while HTML represents a subset of SGML, XML represents a simplified version of SGML.

XML's Birthday

Well the Guardian IT supplement announced that XML was having it's 7th birthday on 10.02.05... which is nice. What is also nice is how they're talking about everything being based on XML!

We know this because of SVG, a graphics format based using XML. I love SVG!

They (Simon Bisson) did get it a little wrong when they talked about the development of XML, "building on the work done with SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language) and the web's HTML (HyperText Markup Language), XML was intended to be a common platform for data exchange accross the rapidly growing internet and become the lingua franca of the connected world."

Here's a link to the article.