The short-form week of 5–11 Aug 2013

12 Aug 2013; last modified 16 Aug 2013

The week in review, 140 characters at a time.

This document was created automatically from my archive of my Twitter stream. Due to limitations in the Twitter API and occasional glitches in my archiving system, it may not be 100% complete.

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 03:14pm

WTF is "Newark Penn Station"?—@ndw
@ndw Newark, NJ. It's a stop or two from NY Penn Station.—@andersoncliffb
@ndw there used to be a pennsylvania railroad. so, many of the stations along that line are called penn station (new york penn, newark...—@smyles
@ndw new joisey!—@peteaven
@peteaven Because Joisey needed a station between EWR and New $%@! York Penn Station called Newark Penn %$&@! Station.—@ndw
@ndw A station in Newark where you can catch a train on the Pennsylvania Rail Road? (Random guess…)—@chaals

Monday at 09:48am

#Balisage never fails to inspire and delight. Enjoying the Native XML User Interfaces symposium.—@ndw

Monday at 11:54am

@ndw @laurendw arriving YUL 20.20. Ping if exciting things are happening :-)—@fidothe

Monday at 02:54pm

There's no such thing as coincidence; there's only insufficiently advanced skepticism.—@kendall

In a conversation that started on Monday at 03:42pm

I’m sure @sgmlguru will be pleased that I just pushed an update to #XMLCalabash that supports a cx:wait-for-update step. #Balisage —@ndw
@ndw Yay, I am. Thank you.—@sgmlguru
@ndw @sgmlguru #xmlcalabash finally makes sense- i have been saying calabash out loud for like three months and wondering—@drabshadow

In a conversation that started on Monday at 09:22pm

@laurendw @ndw is anyone out & about? I saw Peter on my way to airbnb but even he has vanished…—@fidothe
@fidothe @ndw everyone left the balisage gathering room a few minutes ago, sorry. See you tomorrow!—@laurendw

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 10:21am

In @docum3nt’s honor, I have registered http://t.co/YogfnpXOoEE. Submissions welcome. #Balisage #DocBook —@ndw
@ndw MoTA submission: <p>...he was hang'd drawn &amp; <num val="0.25">quartered</num>.</p>—@docum3nt
@ndw I guess submitting all of TEI is out of the question? ;)—@azaroth42
@azaroth42 @ndw Why stop there? I know of a few other mangled messes that proport to be standards too! ;)—@benosteen

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:13pm

Trick of representing complex data structures as seqs of functions interesting, even if you don't buy into sticking to pure XPath. #balisage —@mathling
@mathling i agree - i would just do it in xquery. #balisage —@jonathan_robie
@jonathan_robie @mathling And how would you do that in Schematron or another language that leverages only XPath?—@ndw
@ndw @mathling i mostly see two cases: systems or languages that won't do more than xpath 1.0, and those that can do xquery #balisage —@jonathan_robie
@jonathan_robie @mathling That's silly. XProc uses XPath (will use XPath 2/3) but will never support XQuery as an expression language.—@ndw
@ndw @mathling do you need more than xpath 3.0 but seriously less than xquery? once you add element construction and functions, you're close—@jonathan_robie
@ndw @jonathan_robie @mathling What’s in XQuery 3 minus XPath 3 which warrants your “never”?—@ebruchez
@ebruchez i do not understand the question. i want xpath to remain a subset of xquery, and significantly simpler than xquery @ndw @mathling —@jonathan_robie
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling How much simpler is XPath 3 than XQuery 3? Feature delta is small.—@ebruchez
@ebruchez if people want to add element construction and libraries to xpath, you basically have xquery - so just use xquery @ndw @mathling —@jonathan_robie
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling Right, so what XQuery adds over XPath is small. In which case, why would XQuery be out but XPath in?—@ebruchez
@ebruchez precisely. perhaps it's not a technical reason? @ndw @mathling —@jonathan_robie
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling I use more and more Scala for XML processing. I would want more, not less, from XPath/XQuery. #background —@ebruchez
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling Background: I would like XPath 3, but no implementation so I can’t use it.—@ebruchez
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling But even if I had XQuery 3, as a language it lags behind other programming languages. #background —@ebruchez
@ebruchez the biggest problem in xpath 3 adoption is that implementors want something not more complex than xpath 1.0 @ndw @mathling —@jonathan_robie
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling XPath 2 adoption 6 years after rec is abysmal. XPath 3 adoption likely to be way worse.—@ebruchez
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling Biggest problem for XPath 3 adoption is that “nobody” is implementing it (nobody as open source).—@ebruchez
@ebruchez but i want an xpath 3 profile no more complex than xpath 1 to encourage browser vendors and others to implement @ndw @mathling —@jonathan_robie
@jonathan_robie @ndw @mathling We already have XPath 1… and Browsers don’t want XML, period.—@ebruchez
@ebruchez for the most part, xpath 3.0 is the common subset of xquery / xslt. good to have even if not widely used elsewhere @ndw @mathling —@jonathan_robie

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 02:32pm

Spending too much time lately marveling at how bad tools for connecting humans to code and data remain after decades of work. #balisage —@simonstl
@simonstl Very enjoyable talk, but I was left with no idea of any, single practical change proposed.—@ndw
@ndw actually, one other thought. Does XProc support steps that require a pause for human input? I think it's possible as extension....—@simonstl
@simonstl @ndw Norm added it to Calabash yesterday. My hero!—@sgmlguru
@sgmlguru @ndw wonderful! I'll to take a look. Always best when practical steps have already happened...—@simonstl
@simonstl @sgmlguru Docs: http://t.co/xNa8EbJrvQ (And this is just my experiment, suggestions welcome)—@ndw
@ndw @sgmlguru would also love to see mechanism for explicit "please proceed" from human. But thank you, awesome!—@simonstl
@simonstl @ndw Yes, a specific, predefinable "OK, go ahead" message would be useful.—@sgmlguru
@ndw @sgmlguru "until the URI specified in the href option has changed" - response from resource, or URI itself? Sorry, confused.—@simonstl
@ndw @sgmlguru and sorry, you specify behavior later, just tripping over URI pedantry of the past.—@simonstl
@simonstl I invented one yesterday in response to @sgmlguru’s talk.—@ndw
@ndw that is a sign that it may have succeeded. You have to come up with your own practice.—@simonstl

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 03:16pm

@ndw Is there a demo jam at #balisage ?—@georgebina
@georgebina Not this year, we’re hosting the pizza social this evening instead this time.—@ndw

Tuesday at 03:39pm

Open mouth, insert both feet up to the ankles. #longday #facepalm #blushingcrimson —@ndw

Tuesday at 06:28pm

God's plan - 1) Make humans after getting bored with Dinosaurs; 2) Drown most humans; 3) Kill myself (as my son); 4) Hide.—@Woodlandbookshp

Tuesday at 06:42pm

“Why is iTunes using 79% of my CPU?” “Because you’ve got it open?”—@liza

Tuesday at 08:54pm

Nothing fixes stupid but death.—@kendall

In a conversation that started on Tuesday at 09:47pm

Werewolf again. Victorious again. Dead in the first round evermore, I fear.—@ndw
@ndw I'm going to ride my martyrdom for all it's worth -- look out—@msokolov
@ndw all hail the werewolf king!—@laurendw
@laurendw @ndw Werewolfs were good tonight, next time I know who I need to kill first ...—@OctavianNadolu

Wednesday at 07:12am

XML Stars, the journal is out! http://t.co/gsRNgt1v4z ▸ Top stories today via @ndw —@dominixml

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 08:57am

DocBook XSL stylesheets getting slapped about a bit. *sigh* Yes, the title page machinery in the XSLT 1.0 stylesheets is complex. #Balisage —@ndw
@ndw This is why (for regular PDF output) there is a strong business case for creating LaTeX, not FO. #balisage —@docum3nt
@ndw @docum3nt Those who slap the DocBook stylesheets have clearly not worked with the DITA Open Toolkit XSLT.—@arh

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 08:57am

If it’s any consolation, the XSLT 2.0 stylesheets are a whole lot simpler in this regard.—@ndw
@ndw your stylesheets are great - it's just the stack, overriding and building and growing gets to be too much.—@simonstl

Wednesday at 09:02am

Evil? Meh.—@ndw

Wednesday at 09:06am

DocBook V5.x has autoplay and other HTML5 control attributes on audiodata, FWIW—@ndw

Wednesday at 09:17am

Ad hoc “standard” extensions to XHTML5 are…oh, never mind.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 09:24am

Is it too early to start drinking?—@ndw
@ndw we're in Montreal! Of course not!—@simonstl
@ndw Depends, courtesy bars open about 7 am in better New Orleans hotels.—@patrickDurusau
@ndw Not if you pretend to be in Asia or something. Cheers!—@kendall
@ndw it is happy hour somewhere!—@kstirman

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 09:55am

Dream of the day when the XML core community gets over this strange lingering thought that HTML is dirty inferior stuff. #balisage —@simonstl
@simonstl I’ve never thought of it as dirty or inferior. It’s just not extensible in ways I consider necessary and has a limited tag set.—@ndw
@ndw @simonstl what about polyfills?—@laurendw
@laurendw @ndw even before polyfills, I've never found it difficult to customize. Murray Maloney gave us (?) span/div, and browsers tolerant—@simonstl
@simonstl @laurendw @ndw Browsers are finally implementing Web Components, making HTML as extensible as XML, roll your own tags—@dethe
@dethe @laurendw @ndw yes - we can finally set browser vendors to the side and focus on what we'd like to do rather than on their politics.—@simonstl

Wednesday at 12:40pm

Introduced @ndw and @fidothe to ingress on lunchtime walk—@laurendw

In a conversation that started on Wednesday at 06:53pm

#balisage people are: A. eating, B. their brains are full, or C. having a <beer/> (or all three). It is lonely on twitter now. SO lonely.—@alexmilowski
@alexmilowski so... best balisage topic so far?—@adamretter
@adamretter I'm only living vicariously through others. @ndw, do you have a favorite?—@alexmilowski

Thursday at 08:29am

Curly quotes in code listings on slides is one of the reasons I could never use PowerPoint or its ilk for presentations.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 01:23pm

Specifying a brand new obligatory parsing algorithm for every new format is surely an anti-pattern. #balisage —@mathling
@mathling But parsing is easy. *sigh*—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 02:29pm

Needed: sensors to detect, report brainmelt at #balisage. Suspect this room dangerously melting from excessively amazing XSLT demo.—@simonstl
@simonstl #Balisage is always brain melting. That’s why we come to Montreal!—@ndw
@ndw I worry that it may be a fire code violation now!—@simonstl

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 04:31pm

Used to use RDF (in my weblog), now just use XML. Now wondering if I should try using RDF again. #Balisage —@ndw
@ndw Use #RDFa instead. I think you'll find it easier to mix together with your existing #XML —@alexmilowski
@ndw what has changed for you?—@david_megginson
@david_megginson Interesting support for triples in MarkLogic server. :-)—@ndw
@ndw I'd stick with the XML. You can say it the way you want to, and RDF (or TM, etc.) is only an XSLT transform away.—@RichardOfSussex

In a conversation that started on Thursday at 07:26pm

Anyone know which blockbuster movie started the trend of showings at 12:01am? #lazyweb —@ndw

Thursday at 09:06pm

Friday at 07:24am

"And now the monkeys are typing too much", she says, looking at me. #Balisage #testing —@ndw

Friday at 11:18am

@daldei I added a css-formatter step to #XMLCalabash that can use either Antenna House or PrinceXML for print formatting.—@ndw

In a conversation that started on Sunday at 03:08pm

Favorite bit of #balisage: I suggested a change to XProc to @ndw, and he'd already done it: http://t.co/K30506kfXG per @sgmlguru suggestion—@simonstl
@simonstl @ndw It is kind of cool, isn't it? I'll wish I had a million dollars next. #balisage —@sgmlguru

Tuesday at 08:51am

RT @Elka72: Gotta love the Dutch. Amsterdam marks Putin's visit by flying gay pride flags on all city council buildings: http://t.co/lZcAHZ… —@ndw