xml-dev - Re: XML: Still Just HypedWebStuff

[David Megginson <david@megginson.com>]

Len Bullard <cbullard@hiwaay.net> writes:

> What we are seeing is a hype that XML has some magical effect on the 
> bottom line, but the dirty secret is it costs as much or more, and just 
> like SGML, if I need consultants and BizPartners just to implement it, 
> it is a failed technology.

Both statements are false: SGML and XML don't do much, and they don't
cost much.

High-volume custom publishing systems, complex interactive databases,
document management systems with word-level granularity, large
customizable dynamically-constructed Web sites, and other such goodies
*do* cost a lot, and they'd cost a lot with or without SGML or XML
(you probably save a trivial amount because you can use OTS software
for a few of the tasks).

That's not a bad thing, as long as people are building those systems
for the right reasons (they need them) and not for the wrong reasons
(they think that something about SGML or XML compells them to).

I'm really, really tired of people writing that XML is expensive.
That's like saying that tires are expensive because you have to buy a
Jaguar to put on top of them.


All the best,


David

-- 
David Megginson                 david@megginson.com
           http://www.megginson.com/

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