RE: XML.COM: How I Learned to Love daBomb

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

I think Ed is in the real world.  The article is 
a symptom of the growing frustration and fatigue 
with all of the "new and different" that is promoted 
before the last thing gets firmly established.  
The specs keep churning based on the minimal 
victories that don't complete the job, then 
the tools churn.  Those of us who as I said are 
Thralls and have to wait until post-beta to 
begin our own work are forever waiting.  

Some XML ambitions exceed what the SGMLers thought 
were reasonable applications of markup.  Web 
Services are at the lunatic fringe of what we described 
for markup in the eighties and early nineties, 
so nothing there is surprising or particularly 
new other than they are now mainstream.  The 
problem issues of widely distributed 
cooperative systems is coordination, the reason 
we looked into CASE tools, simulation and Hytime for synchronization 
and scheduling concepts for workflow in hypermedia. 
There are problems object-concepts don't solve.  It 
may be possible that web services with AI components 
can be part of that solution, at least where the noise 
is mammal noise.  

So the notion that XML isn't being developed intelligently 
is a little harsh, but I understand.  To appeal to the 
past, particularly the way the web has come about, is 
not that appealing.  Head long rush, personalities, 
minimal victories, all of this is too much the thinking 
of one-off systems.   For all the critique of ISO, those 
five year cycles served to stabilize all of the dense 
and insanely multi-dimensional processes that have to 
converge to create safe interoperable systems.  Otherwise, we 
will have as predicted, the occasional catastrophe 
and we have only luck to prevent it being in very 
sensitive junctions.   Too many of the early web 
developers overlooked the problems of cultural and 
individual predilections that have lead to so many 
current problems. 

The problem is as it has always been, to compete and 
comply.  Standards are valuable, but they should be 
based on experience with real systems, not experimentation. 
That is why I speak of balance of powers among the 
organizations that require, propose and govern.   
XML is just SGML.  We know how this works and we 
know where the limits are.  I don't have as many 
problems with that (I can write Schemas, I can use 
namespaces, and I know what they are good for), but 
I worry everyday about complexity merging with 
the unknown unknowns.   I only fume when I see the 
simplistic merge with the all too well known and that 
creates the kinds of events we are seeing in the use 
and misuse of the Internet.   The chickens do come 
home to roost.

The good news if you want to consider it that:  the 
tool betas look more solid and as the choices 
are made and the developers move on to the next 
stage of making the car love opera, we will finally 
get the best seats.  One can only hope they are 
next to someone who doesn't smell funny.  There 
are limits.

Len 
http://www.mp3.com/LenBullard

Ekam sat.h, Vipraah bahudhaa vadanti.
Daamyata. Datta. Dayadhvam.h


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Brennan [mailto:Michael_Brennan@allegis.com]

I've really grown weary of these sorts of articles. Web services is
over-hyped and over-marketed, therefore it is just a vacuous passing fad.
Interesting logic. Toothpaste is over-hyped and over-marketed, too. Does
that mean that toothpaste is just a passing fad?

I have to laugh at someone who dismisses web services as a meaningless
passing fad, then goes on to share his enthusiasm for the Semantic Web. All
I can think is it must be nice to not have to live in the real world.