Message-ID: <19981110202051.AAA26902@LOCALNAME> Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 17:22:30 -0400 From: Kerry Miller <mailto:kerryo@NS.SYMPATICO.CA> Subject: Re: DML:XML for international Development To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Chris Byrne wrote, >
> I am sorry, but there are other core issues in the provision of
> development information that are more important than DML or any other
> standard:
>
> 1. How do we get all development organizations, particularly from the
> South, on the web and train their staff in information management
> techniques and tools;
>
> 2. How do we convince all agencies that there is core/common
> metadata/data that needs to be provided on all development web sites (in a
> consistent manner), and that there IS A NEED for this?;
>
> 3. How do we make the process as easy as possible and built to the
> lowest common denominator (i.e. accomodate people and organizations not
> using the latest and greatest browser)?
Clearly there's a need to define 'standard' before we can speak of defining standards of any sort! To the extent that your response to the DML 'request for comments' imputes to Bellanet (or anyone else) the ambition to stake out new territory in advance of the settlers, it reflects one (admittedly common) sense of the word -- that of *predetermined* boundaries of what shall and shall not be a 'real' development webpage or dataset or even project -- and you are quite correct to be skeptical that many other agencies would obediently fall into line behind such a 'standard.'
On the other cotton-picking hand, the Bellanet proposal (which is linked on the front page) makes it clear, I think, that the germinal idea is only to bring together a variety of resources *which already exist* in a way that may extend their usefulness beyond their original conception. With a shared set of 'meta-tags' (which can be generated within Lotus Notes, Oracle, Sybase, MS SQL or any other editor - even manually), the *kind* of information being made available on a website can be conveyed -- and these descriptors may be described as a 'standard' with equal validity.
In short, before you get on your high horse, check to see which way the cart is pointing.
--- Proceeding to your questions: 1) Do you consider there is a *fixed* set of 'information management techniques'? 2) Have you ever tried to import a HTML table of data to your local database? 3) Isn't it better to ask how to make a process as *useful* as possible? (But I agree, presentations should remain friendly to non-XML-capable viewers, either with something like 'alt' tags or via parallel pages.)kerry