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Interesting conversation going on here. My experience with XML has
generally been just about the opposite of David's.
Much of XML is disappearing into infrastructure, so that you're more
likely to work with it indirectly instead of directly unless you are a
real XML-zealot. Beyond the aforementioned web services, I find that
XML is making its way into application frameworks, publishing has
largely completed the first wave of migration to XML and is undergoing
a second, XML is found handling graphics in Linux (KDE 3.4 will be
largely SVG based), being used for UML to multi-language generation,
is quickly movivng into the database sphere, and is showing up on
nuclear submarines (I caught a fascinating presentation about the use
of XML in managing and maintaining missile launch sequences a few
months basck).
I've also found that many employers have stopped listing XML in their
advertisements, not because they don't need that skill, but because
they assume that working with XML is something that you should just
know if you work with most computer languages.
To get back to the gist of the original post - I would definitely
agree that there are areas where XML is not the best choice by most
measures. My personal feeling about that though is that stating
unequivocably that XML should not be used for X, Y or Z is absurd --
people will try it and either prove to themselves that it doesn't work
in those situations, or they will discover that, contrary to
expectations, XML DOES work pretty well in X, Y and Z. The good ideas
will propagate, the bad ones will fade away, and every so often
someone will discover that while XML doesn't work for ONE use case in
a given problem domain, there may very well be a related use case
where it is eminently well suited. That's what innovation is all
about.
(I wish I could go to the Pleniary (sigh) ... one of these years ...
-- Kurt Cagle
On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 00:47:37 -0500, Liam Quin <liam@w3.org> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2005 at 01:07:03PM -0500, David Lyon wrote:
> > On Thursday 27 January 2005 08:18 pm, Liam Quin wrote:
> >> On Fri, Jan 28, 2005 at 10:58:17AM -0500, David Lyon wrote:
> >>> Interesting to hear about W3C meetings....
> >>> in the real world it's:
> >>> http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/297/5585/1259
> >>
> >> Interesting to hear you think W3C isn't in the "real world" --
> >> are we perceived as too academic (by you at least) or do
> >> we ocupy some alternate universe? :-)
> >
> > Hey... don't argue with me, I know I'm crazy....
>
> :-)
>
> > but no one doubts that the W3C is a very respectable organisation..
> >
> > I imagine that there is no food throwing... and no one brings mud or sand
> > through the doors on their shoes.... what more could anyone want?
>
> Actually I don't usually wear shoes at all.
>
> > but are small business and big business alternate universes? yes
> > they are...
>
> I think that the majority of our Members are businesses, and further
> that most of those are smaller rather than larger, althoug we
> certainly have some very large organizations who participate.
>
> > Is Industrial America different than industrial Asia ? yes.
> Here we do agree.
>
> > Does India have much xml for all its programmers ? no.
> We don't charge for XML by the tag :-) I know of quite a few
> XML programming teams in India, although statistically I've no idea
> what percentage it is of course. XML isn't itself a programming
> language of course, although XSLT blurs the distinction, so the
> question is how many of them are consciously working with XML
> (rather than, say, using a graphical desktop that stores preferences
> or window themes in XML, not uncommon these days).
>
> > What does this mean ? That you guys are so pre-occupied with
> > the APIs that you're not really working on better ways to use
> > what you have got.....
> Strictly speaking we don't do APIs (the DOM is about as close as
> we get, but even that is largely defined in a language-independent
> way) but you may be right that we spend too much time building and
> not enough time living.
>
> Thanks for replying.
>
> Liam
>
> --
> Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
> http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/
>
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--
Kurt Cagle
http://www.understandingxml.com
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