RE: Why WYSIWYG for XML???

[Chris Despopoulos <cud -at- telecable -dot- es>]

I said I'd like to see XML (or other semantic markup, but XML seems to 
win by default) as the format for a large portion of the written words 
in the world.  Somebody else asked me why.  Simple - computers can do 
more with it.  Think about this...  John Poindexter was working on a 
system that would track all the transactions of everybody all the time, 
then use some sort of AI to read the tea-leaves and goats's entrails as 
they come swirling on down the river.  Sounds far-fetched, but it 
actually got funding. 

Ok, so imagine what people could do (hopefully not as ethecially 
challenged as Poindexter) with gobs of text in a form that computers 
like.   Think about Ted Nelson's concept of a world-wide publishing 
system.  Think about a body of text where you ask a naturaly-language 
question, and you get semantically correct globs of text as an answer.  
That and much more - I just think when the scale of the text captured in 
a machine-friendly form reaches a critical mass, we'l see new things.  
Call me evangelical.