Re: [xml-dev] XML's place in the world

[Mike Sokolov <sokolov@ifactory.com>]

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what it is fashionable to talk about, and what people are actually using. 
  

I could offer book sales data, in which XML book sales have 
plunged well below the fall of the rest of the market, but I 
suspect that's not very interesting as it effectively 
measures the volume of chatter people are willing to pay for...

    

I have a theory that the people who buy books about a technology tend to be
early adopters. (Late adopters go on training courses, or learn from their
colleagues, or learn by trial and error.) There aren't any early adopters of
XML any more. People are doing their third or fourth project, and you don't
need new books for that. 

Michael Kay
  

And I thought y'all were discussing the sales of books formatted *as* XML! I'd be interested in comparative sales data there, if you have it.  I suspect the volume is rapidly increasing, especially if you consider EPUB to be fundamentally XML, even though it is only XHTML.  Certainly I don't see anyone proposing to offer books in JSON format, or as SQL databases or name/value stores or whatever.

But this merely supports the point that XML continues to provide value in its core sweet spot.  I don't have any evidence about non-document-oriented XML usage.

-Mike