[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
On Tue, 21 May 2002, Joshua Allen wrote:
> > deeper into the problem. One quote I thought could correlate directly
> > with what we are seeing with XML specifications and technologies:
> >
> > 'But companies don't always need what they get. "They overbuy
> > and get more features, more functions than they need," says
> > analyst David Smith of Gartner'
> >
> > History keeps repeating itself!
>
> On the other hand, the availability of tools and products for XML has
> lagged pretty badly, making it hard for the progress-minded CEO to find
> things to spend money on. The complication in the specs only makes it
> more difficult for vendors to produce products that people can overbuy.
> :-)
>
What you say is true. XML is repeating the history of SGML. SGML was
complicated and vendors had a difficult time supporting all the features.
This drove the cost of the software up tremendously. Most vendors shied
away from SGML and didn't bother building software. A few vendors,
Microsoft being one, stuck their 'toe in the water' and quickly pulled it
out again because it wasn't cost effective because the demand didn't
justify the development costs.
I find it interesting that one of the original design goals of XML was:
"The number of optional features is to be kept to an absolute minimum."
This is still true for XML, the document. However, in order for a vendor
to supply a validating parser to the general population, the software has
to support DTDs, W3C Schema, RELAX NG, XDR, and who knows what when all
is said and done.
If a vendor wants to provide e-commerce XML transport they have to support
SOAP, ebXML TRP, now REST.
The XML specification is 4 years old and vendors are still having a
difficult time betting on which specifications to put their development
$ in. No matter what they decide it is a gamble. They can't support
everything.
XML has so much promise in so many areas. From my personal perspective I
am seeing the demand for XML dwindling. Some of it may be because of the
economy but I believe a lot of it is because of the confusion around the
competing specifications. Organizations that were seriously thinking
about starting XML projects have taken a 'wait and see' attitude.
Betty
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Betty Harvey | Phone: 410-787-9200 FAX: 9830
Electronic Commerce Connection, Inc. |
harvey@eccnet.com | Washington,DC SGML/XML Users Grp
URL: http://www.eccnet.com | http://www.eccnet.com/xmlug/
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\\/\/
|
