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

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

Hi Liam,

>> [...] I notice that James has not entered this discussion.
> I think he's otherwise occupied right now.

That's too bad.  I hope he makes it back here.

>> Voting rules: Votes shall be cast in the following order James Clark,
>> Michael Kay, Tim Bray, then everyone else.

>Then I won't vote, but I'm not sure a "celebrity consensus" would be
>very useful or interesting.

It's less about "celebrity" voting and more about leaders leading, IMHO.  MicroXML is great leadership, and I see it as an attempt to reconcile the world of XML with that of the Web.  There seems to be a widely shared opinion that there is some work to be done on this.

In 2010, James raised the issue of the xml: namespace in MicroXML, and asking the community what they thought of preserving only that namespace and no others moving forward.

Few answered, some for, some against.  I've made my opinion clear, but it doesn't count for much, as I'm certain many would point out.  I would like others to have a say as well, without trying to unleash the villagers with their pitchforks and torches, because we need to try to separate fact from emotion and historically hurt feelings, because it seems there is a large measure of the latter.

To the extent that MicroXML should be backwards compatible with XML, it needs some stuff from xml: as discussed by James.  Before we go too far with MicroXML, we should think about hypermedia affordances in XML 1.0, because as I explained in my previous email, these are an essential support component for the uniform interface.  

They are ill-designed in XML 1.0, not because they are in a namespace, but because they are 
a) in the wrong namespace and hence are not inherited by all XML documents
b) they are not designed for the Web use case.

b) seems to be a good enough reason to redesign them.  If we do that, we should fix a) too.  If some applications use the existing and wish to continue, let them do so, the new tools should be backwards compatible.

I submitted a bugzilla bug to propose a solution for this, but it seems to me that James was on this same track back in 2010, only with MicroXML in mind.  I think it would work for MicroXML too, but my primary goal right now is to patch XML 1.0, with the secondary goal that if the xml: namespace was used for MicroXML it would help that effort, I think it will help anything that is based on  XML.

> The person you'd actually have to persuade is watching the thread. 

If it was just a question of one person deciding, I think Fielding might have called up Sir Tim Berners-Lee years ago.  I can imagine the conversation going something like this:

Fielding (stubbing out his cigar):  Heyo TBL.  We've got a problem with XML.  There are no useful hypermedia affordances in it.  Fix that, will you?
TBL:  Sure enough, Fielding, old boy.  (firing up emacs).  Let me just add them to the XML namespace.... (saving). Done!
Fielding:  Thanks!
TBL:  Pleasure, old boy.  We still on for our match at the club on Saturday ?
Fielding:  Right you are.  See you then! <click>

> * Which companies or organizations would pay to join W3C to do the work?
> * Who would implement new the spec?
> * Who would use it?
> * What business problems would be solved?
> * What would be the impact on the existing deployed XML base?
> * What would be the relationship to the existing W3C XML Core Working Group?

Fair enough,  and I think it applies to *any* XML vocabulary.  But I think we have to establish what the demand is first, and to do that we need a clear set of goals.  For MicroXML, John proposed that the original goals of XML on the web be re-affirmed (in James' blog comments).  I think that's right, but I believe that one of the problems with XML 1.0 is the lack of support for the web, so this will eventually kill any child if it's not addressed.

Peter