[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
- To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>,<xml-dev@lists.xml.org>
- Subject: RE: [xml-dev] how they really feel about XML
- From: "Dare Obasanjo" <dareo@microsoft.com>
- Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2002 10:50:12 -0700
- Thread-index: AcJvohOr5DgcGWsNS9CKSK7+otjLFQAGhdjA
- Thread-topic: [xml-dev] how they really feel about XML
XML is overhyped rants are so 2000.
--
PITHY WORDS OF WISDOM
Marriage is the only union that has consistently defied management.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@simonstl.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 09, 2002 7:41 AM
> To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
>
> Shelley Powers has written a piece called "The Parable of the
> Languages"
> that I find to be a simultaneously funny and accurate
> description of the ways in which XML is commonly discussed
> outside of this community.
>
> http://weblog.burningbird.net/archives/000581.php
>
> Programmers of most stripes will find some entertainment
> about their own environments, but it's the conclusion that
> troubles me most but makes me think hardest.
>
> [few blank lines to avoid spoilers]
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> It seems to me that there are a few real problems here amidst
> the humor.
>
> First, that XML was hyped up, most particularly as a solution
> to programmers' problems. I'm finding more and more over
> time that XML isn't what programmers are actually looking
> for, once they get past superficial examples. Programmers
> are looking for communications tools that require less work
> for more communications, and XML sort of covers the "more
> communications" among environments but not necessarily the
> "less work" angle. We now have an ever-growing stack of Web
> Services junk that claims to offer the "less work" angle, but
> it seems to have become work in its own category.
>
> Second, that people think of XML as a programming language.
> I don't think that "XML as a programming language" is a
> common theme on this list, but I do get lots of naive email
> questions pretty much to that effect. I'm not sure that XML
> had any business at that gathering of programming languages.
>
> Finally, to push back on the programming languages, I'm
> astounded that programmers seem to have such an impossible
> time wrapping their heads around what markup is actually good
> for. (I think relational databases had similar problems, but
> less culture clash. Tables less alien to computers than
> documents and all that.)
>
> I keep seeing the same old XML-as-object-serialization story
> that makes XML out to be an excitingly half-baked technology
> for letting programs talk to programs. There's no question
> that XML can be used for that, but it reminds me a bit of a
> guy who'd written Perl programs which communicated over
> sockets using a very readable though simple subset of
> English. It was great for debugging, admittedly.
>
> Of course, I'm happy to admit that I'm taking a whimsical
> parable far too seriously, as usual. It does seem like a
> good thing to ponder in the context of "XML development", however.
>
> -------------
> Simon St.Laurent - SSL is my TLA
> http://simonstl.com may be my URI
> http://monasticxml.org may be my ascetic URI
> urn:oid:1.3.6.1.4.1.6320 is another possibility altogether
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org
> <http://www.xml.org>, an initiative of OASIS
> <http://www.oasis-open.org>
>
> The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription
> manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl>
>
>
|