Tim Bray on XML hits and misses

[Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com]

 news://news.software.ibm.com/ibm.software.developerworks.xml.devcon2001  is a news server that has a number of firsthand reports from XML DevCon in New York.  I found the posting about Tim Bray's "XML Hits and Misses" presentation particularly interesting.

 

 "Hits" include application integration with "ad hoc" vocabularies, content syndication, and XSLT.

 

"Misses" include vertical industry vocabularies, "intelligent" document authoring (most XML docs are created with Word or Frame), and the Semantic Web.

 

"Too soon to tell" efforts include ebXML and Web Services.

 

Look especially at the last couple of paragraphs.  He compared various other technologies to help figure out what factors might predict which will be hits or misses.  His conclusion is that adherence to the 80:20 rule is the best predictor of a "hit".  Strong backing by the US Military was a negative predictor (e.g. Ada ... and the Semantic Web?).