Re: [xml-dev] The year is 2027, and we need to examine archived XMLdocum

[Jonathan Robie <jonathan.robie@redhat.com>]

Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> Suppose the year is 2027. XML stopped being used years earlier, in
> favor of another format. 

Personally, I doubt it. The cost of achieving consensus for another 
format is probably much greater than the benefit, but this part of the 
scenario isn't essential.

> The financial institution wants to examine its
> data archives (XML documents) from 2007. What capabilities must the
> financial institution have to read the archives?
>
> I think the only capability that the financial institution will require
> is the ability to interpret Unicode or ASCII, correct? Having an XML
> parser will not be required, correct?
>   

They'll need some way to parse the structure, or they will be unable to 
distinguish the text from comments and metadata associated with the 
text, determine that a bunch of cells actually define a table, etc.

They'll probably need some kind of documented schema, because for 
complex schemas, the meaning of some of the markup won't be audience.

They'll be happiest if the documentation for this format does not 
require 6,000 pages, because writing a program that uses this data well 
may require understanding the format as a whole. They'll also be 
happiest if the documentation fully specifies the format without 
hand-waving.

Jonathan