RE: [xml-dev] 2007 Predictions

["Nathan Young -X \(natyoung - Artizen at Cisco\)" <natyoung@cisco.com>]

Hi Kurt (and list).

> I think the "HTML" browser is definitely creaky, but I think 
> the mixed mode XHTML browser is also just
> really coming online.

I'll second you on this one.  On this list it's well known that you can
style XML using css in the browser, but the implications for front end
development may not be fully felt.  In web developer communities it's
not nearly as well known and the implications are outside of the current
conversations.

Based on how fast I see my peers picking up JSON, I think the
shortcomings of the DOM API have been underestimated.  At the same time
I think having JSON specs for RSS, RPC, etc is going to start to seem
crazy to everyone. Something like e4j could take off in a big way.

In 2007 the combination of increased browser support, increased literacy
and a technical and social climate that encourages it could lead to an
explosion of XML use in the browser:  A revolutionary non-revolution
much like Ajax.

> Mozilla is also creating a
> vacuum effect - its becoming the browser to emulate (or 
> outdo) in terms of core technologies, and the Mozilla 
> implementation is quietly replacing the IE implementation as 
> the canonical standard that's forcing other vendors
> to create feature equivalents.

Not technically an XML prediction but...

There are already a lot of things you can do with mozilla that you just
can't do with IE.  2007 could see Mozilla-only functionality being part
of the next killer app.  That's an internet with IE7 left behind.

> XAML, FLEX, OpenLaszlo, Boxely and other XML frameworks are 
> opening up, and I think that the XML-based stand-alone apps 
> MAY be on their way in, but I honestly don't see that market 
> opening up appreciably until 2008 at the earliest.

I see the browser as the OS for these apps.  Is that too cliche?

------------>Nathan

> There is 
> also still very much a deployment issue, and the fact that 
> people are increasingly spending more and more time within 
> the browser context that will be a strong inertial factor to 
> overcome. 
> 
> My own feeling is that the XML client binding framework 
> likely will be one of THE key XML stories of 200, the others 
> being XQuery and XSLT2, the latter of which I expect to see 
> some SERIOUS traction on. I talked recently with an IT 
> Director for Lexus-Nexus, and he indicated that they are 
> increasingly using XSLT not so much as a presentation layer 
> generator but as a router, bypassing a lot of commercial 
> tools to do so. I disagree with Jon Bosak on that one point 
> ... I think that with the simplified transformations that 
> XSLT2 opens up, and the consistent extensions mechanism, that 
> XSLT will likely end up becoming much more commonly used as 
> nodal routers evaluating XML business logic instead of 
> specialized web services doing the same (especially since 
> such XSLT actually works very nicely with a messaging queue). 
> Make XSLT callable from within XQueries (see eXist for a 
> wonderful implementation, especially with Saxon 8 doing duty 
> as the transformer) makes for a considerably simpler yet more 
> powerful web architecture than lots of code monkeys writing 
> linear ASP/JSP scripts. 
> 
> -- Kurt
> 
>  
> 
> 
>