RE: [xml-dev] "Introducing MicroXML, Part 1: Explore the basicprinciples

["Rushforth, Peter" <Peter.Rushforth@NRCan-RNCan.gc.ca>]

> 
> IADS predates web browsers but already used style sheets, 
> hyperlinking,
> etc.  It has what you are describing:  a fixed vocabulary.   In fact,
> #FIXED attributes from SGML were an early way to annotate this sort of
> thing.  It was in fact, a DTD-less SGML browser.   
> 
> IOW, there are markup hypermedia browsers (at least one still 
> standing) that do exactly what you are describing.  They 
> interleave a fixed application language into ANY markup 
> including ones that already have
> their own semantics for links.


  You may want to note that 
> what xml:base
> does was done with entity declarations once upon a time 
> before it became
> necessary to reinvent them.   People such as me have jobs because like
> COBOL programmers, we know how those work (meaning I can read 
> a DTD, edit in Notepad++ and program so I replace four 
> slots/persons.  Cheap!).
> 
> >>That's exactly the problem.  Build it into the language, problem 
> >>disappears! Well ok, there may be other problems.
> 
> Well, build it into a separate language and interleave it 
> into the rest but we're quibbling syntax and legal/contract 
> definitions on that one.
> Would you believe me if I told you all of this was discussed 
> endlessly a decade and a half ago?  HTML had the upper hand 
> in that even though it had a crummy browser, it was free and 
> it worked for the trivial tasks.
> Then with mountains of money and publicity, it became the 
> kudzu of the information age.  Now it takes its final 
> evolutionary form as HTML5:  it owns the parse.

Of course I would believe it, I was around but not really paying
attention (still a problem!).  But, don't you mean the browser owns
the parse?

> 
> And it will die rather more quickly than anyone suspects, but 
> that is a prediction yet to be realized.

Maybe because MicroXML will replace it?

>  
> >>XML may live on for 1000 or more years, if we make it.
> >>How many times can that markup be reinvented?  And each 
> time it gets 
> >>reinvented is one more reason to not use XML.
> 
> It won't exactly get reinvented. Mauled and rebranded is more 
> likely.  I believe, and John can correct me, MicroXML is a 
> JSON competitor because it turns out XML is not the best 
> solution to the problem it was touted to solve: bits on the 
> wire.  On the other hand, let's say Microsoft makes noise 
> with its Javascript patent, then JSON doesn't look too 
> healthy and that is precisely why markup if not XML was 
> invented and why keeping it free of application layers is A 
> Good Thing.

Holy Cow!

> 
> Notice that the markup examples I gave above come from 
> standards that predate the web by almost a decade.  The DTD 
> used for that is huge and bulky.  Not important except to 
> note that Internet Time and
> Inevitability proved to be yet another myth.   All 
> technologies that get
> widespread uptake develop like a wildfire until the uptake 
> reaches some
> point of distribution and then switching costs take over.   
> That is your
> main challenge in this proposal.  Where the investments are 
> fairly large, so are the switching costs.

I can see that.  But at the same time, it could be amortized over a long, 
long time, right, because not every application is going to start
using those hypermedia affordances on day 1.

 
> 
> That is one reason I have a job.  :)  They can't afford to move on.

Ha!  I can certainly see that.  Next time you're in Ottawa, I owe you a beer!

> 
> >>I'm on board with XSL! Why do you say was/?
> 
> Some noises that the XSL-FO part of it may be deprecated as solutions
> converge around CSS on the web.   That will be a problem for 
> the world I
> work in that makes heavy use of XSL-FO with PDF.  On the 
> other hand, it is a tooling problem and we simply buy new 
> tools, we don't sell them.

OK.  Much as I liked XSL-FO, it didn't get the traction I thought it was going
to so I kind of stopped playing with it.  But I always thought making maps
with SVG + XSL-FO was a pretty cool idea.

Trying to stay off the third rail,
Peter