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   Who's afraid of the big bad Bob? [Was XML Specs]

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Lovely to see you back in the mosh pit, David.

> I've just come back to xml-dev after a little absence, during which
> I've been busy working, watching my already small investment portfolio
> shrink daily, and using my leisure hours to get a private pilot's
> license instead of debating standards.  I don't have any particular
> position in the current debates on XForms vs. Microsoft's thingy,

What surprises me about the XForms versus XDocs dust-up is that I think it 
gives Microsoft far too much credit for its current ability to embrace and 
extinguish.  I've never been an MSThrall, and, to be sure, Microsoft has 
almost always been irrelevant to me even as I've made a professional practice 
of software development.

Maybe that's why all the hue and cry sounds as if it comes from outer space.  
All I hear is that Flash MX is public enemy number one to XML and the Web.  
No.  Wait!  XDocs is public enemy number one to XML and the Web.  And wait!  
There's more!  Did you know the browser has completely lost relevance?

I'm sorry, but it leaves me cold as a Norwegian cod.  Macromedia and Microsoft 
are themselves afraid of the success of the unforseen new aegis of "openness", 
as embodied by the success of the Web, XML, open source software, and the 
like.  I predict that if we continue to proceed in contempt of the direct 
threat these interests are supposed to pose, that openness will continue to 
win.  Microsoft couldn't threaten the Web with MPC, or with Blackbird.  They 
couldn't hijack XML and Web services with BizTalk and Hailstorm.  What makes 
XDocs a convincing balrog?

Summary: XForms is very impressive at first glance.  Continue the work on it 
and never mind the snarling and moaning.

But then again, perhaps things would be more exciting if I tried on the hat of 
the paranoid survivalist....


> Here's some advice.

[snip]

Sage words, to be sure.


-- 
Uche Ogbuji                                    Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net    http://4Suite.org    http://fourthought.com
Python&XML column: 2. Introducing PyXML - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/09/25/p
y.html
The Past, Present and Future of Web Services 1 - http://www.webservices.org/ind
ex.php/article/articleview/663/1/24/
The Past, Present and Future of Web Services 2 - 'http://www.webservices.org/in
dex.php/article/articleview/679/1/24/
Serenity through markup - http://adtmag.com/article.asp?id=6807
Tip: Using generators for XML processing - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerwork
s/xml/library/x-tipgenr.html






 

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