xml-dev - Re: Do SGML and XML co-exist?

[Paul Prescod <paul@prescod.net>]

Len Bullard wrote:
> 
> That was the danger expressed to Murray in Vancouver, but it looks
> like the survivors figured it out.  Yes, MS or any company including
> the Feds can leave one hanging.  But this is so:  if Jean Paoli
> had NOT come to Vancouver, and certain parties not persuaded the
> IE product managers that SGML was the key to getting six month
> lead on the then dominant browser, that this innovation would
> work where every other form of arm twisting would fail, we
> would be debating this on comp-text-sgml.

I don't believe that. There was a requirement for an e-commerce and data
interchange meta-language. We were there first. The client side (if it
ever materializes) will be gravy. Microsoft probably accelerated the
process but there was a desperate market need for a faster way to
describe data interchange languages than BNF and SGML really should have
been there several years ago but for the stigma and the DTD dependency
issue. 

Admittedly, had Microsoft come out with an XML *competitor*, XML might
have been in trouble. But if they sat on their hands, we would still
need to solve the Internet e-commerce issues with or without them and I
don't see any other proposals for data interchange meta- and schema-
languages.

-- 
 Paul Prescod  - ISOGEN Consulting Engineer speaking for himself
Bart: Dad, do I really have to brush my teeth?
Homer: No, but at least wash your mouth out with soda.

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