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On Feb 14, 2004, at 6:07 AM, Dare Obasanjo wrote:
> Maybe this is just Sun's way of justifying pushing replacing the XML
> in XML Web Services with ASN.1
A somewhat fairer characterization :-) would be that they're
suggesting a more rigorous ASN.1 formalization of the XML Infoset that
SOAP defines, thus allowing (allegedly) more efficient ASN.1
serializations. I do agree that this would be consistent with her
apparent theme that XML has focused lots of smart people on the boring
political problems of standardizing syntax rather than the interesting
problems of advanced processing.
I don't agree with Livschitz, if this is her point. I liked the
interview with Jaron Lanier that is referenced in that article
http://java.sun.com/features/2003/01/lanier_qa1.html : "the real
difference between the current idea of software, which is protocol
adherence, and the idea I'm discussing, pattern recognition, has to do
with the kinds of errors we're creating. We need a system in which
errors are more often proportional to the source of the error." To
me, the value of XML comes more from its ability to support pattern
recognition than from its ability to rigorously define protocols or
serialize strongly typed objects or database records. To lament the
attention that XML has apparently diverted from nice abstract technical
challenges to messy problems of information representation is to miss
the whole point that XML's value proposition comes from its ability to
bridge these two worlds.
Hmm, Sean has just posted a couple things on this very subject of
formalism vs grokkability:
http://seanmcgrath.blogspot.com/archives/
2004_02_08_seanmcgrath_archive.html#107676029387538401
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