[
Lists Home |
Date Index |
Thread Index
]
My grandma used to say "a standard is, as a standard does". Participating
in several list-servers for emerging standards as a potential user, I can
add my observation that one reason for low success-rates from standards
bodies is that they tend to be naïve about management of marketing
requirements. Software companies work hard to support product marketing
staff to force R&D to consider what's actually required by intended users.
Many standards groups are like R&D departments enjoying a vacation from
pesky market requirements (present company excepted!)
To me, XML seems little more than a standard language for representing
abstract syntax, handling pesky issues like namespaces and references
(xpath). In the UNIX era (is it over?) Yacc and Lex provided a framework
that allowed nifty little languages to be invented easily, for any purpose.
Perhaps XML is more useful in that it eliminates the lexer/parser layer, and
encourages us to exchange information at the parse-tree level, instead of
bothering with lots of unique (though sometimes interesting) languages.
-Allen
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Ancona [mailto:jim@anconafamily.com]
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 9:56 AM
To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Cc: jim.waldo@east.sun.com
Subject: [xml-dev] Why Standards?
Jim Waldo has a weblog post at
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=4840
which, while not mentioning XML, seems to relate pretty well to some of
our standards permathreads on xml-dev. He writes:
"I can't think of a single standard that was invented by committee that
has survived in the marketplace. The long-standing standards are those
that were first de facto standards, and were described (no invented) by
the standards bodies."
Perhaps XML is a counter-example, although one could object that:
- XML is a codification of SGML best practices for the web, and hence
was described, not invented. To me, XML seems like a bit of a hybrid,
neither invented from scratch, nor a straight documentation of existing
practice.
- It's too soon to tell. At five years old, XML seems to be doing pretty
well, but it certainly isn't up there with IP or ANSI C as long-lasting
standards go.
Some of the follow-on XML standards like XML Schema and XQuery are
clearly in the "invented" category. It will be interesting keep Jim's
comments in mind as we watch their progress
Jim
-----------------------------------------------------------------
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>
|
