Fwd: War of Attrition (was: [xml-dev] Underwhelmed (WAS: [xml-dev] XOMmicro tutorial))

[Mike Champion <mc@xegesis.org>]

Forwarded on behalf of Ari Krupnikov

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For some reason, I have a feeling that the unjustifiable complexity of
the later XML specs is not altogether random and goes beyond the
Second System Effect [0] mentioned in [1].

When the original XML 1.0 Rec came out, it was (almost) simple enough
for any one developer or a small team to implement correctly. A parser
by a team of hobbyists working in their spare time could be every bit
as good as Microsoft's, IBM's or Oracle's; indeed, the first XML years
saw a plentiful crop of parsers. This is in sharp contrast to, say,
the number of W3C Schema validatiors - I am only aware of one not
written by a major vendor, and that one is by the Rec editor.

In a war of attrition, it pays to escalate if you have the resources
to ride it out. What you want to do is not so much build a better
mousetrap as have your opponents spend resources they don't have. It
doesn't matter if your SDI really works as long as you can bankrupt
the other guy as he's trying to keep up.

So the big fish rode out DOM Level 2. Some will ride out W3C
Schema. Those left standing will try XML Query. And then the winner
will throw away the specs it used to win the battle.

As soon as you've won your war of attrition, you have no use for the
very instrument you used to win it.

Ari.

[0] ISBN:0201835959
[1] http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/200206/msg00076.html



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