Re: [xml-dev] Where is XML going

[Ben Trafford <ben@prodigal.ca>]

On Sun, 2010-12-05 at 18:18 -0500, Simon St.Laurent wrote: 
> > Very similar arguments were made 15 years ago when the XML efforts were
> > underway. "The SGML ship has sailed." That wasn't a good reason to
> > ignore the issue then, and it isn't now.
> 
> Well, except that we tried and didn't get much traction.  I'm not sure 
> why you expect a different result.

Because the technologies are more mature now. Ten years ago, we were
hobbled by the plethora of different specs trying to do different jobs,
and the relative immaturity of the various browsers.

We're not limited by that today.

> > In addition, as I've already pointed out, browsers support all the
> > behaviors I've described, and XML already has -some- support in
> > virtually every browser. This is low-hanging fruit.
> 
> Low-hanging fruit in its current form, but low-hanging fruit in 
> convincing browser vendors to add to their fairly grudging XML support? 
> Have you spent much time around the brutal wit of the HTML5 crowd?

Unfortunately, yes.

Regardless, if HTML5 proves anything, it's that a small, dedicated group
of people can move mountains.

If took something like, say, Webkit, and modified it to serve as a
reference implementation, we would be presenting a path and an example
for the browser crowd.

--->Ben