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From: Uche Ogbuji [mailto:uche@ogbuji.net]
On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:35 AM, Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com> wrote: On 11/17/13 10:38 AM, David Lee wrote: This is a good idea. I've wondered for a while when the next phase transition would come along - first SGML -> XML, then XML -> ????. ------- A paragraph I forgot to add to my previous post. There are many past and current technologies that use the word "XML" when in fact it is not "Text Serialized XML". "XML Databases" are a keen example. You can see this in eXist, Oracle, DB2, MarkLogic where the database is/was called "XML" but in fact stored nothing at all corresponding to "text serialized XML" - or atleast not entirely that ...
So there is historical precedence to (ab)use the term "XML" to refer to a umbrella of technologies. Nowadays ... many DB's (including $EMPLOYEER) have changed the focus of their naming to avoid the "X-Word" ... but not because its imprecise (it is), but because it has absorbed negative media connotations. There is a new buzzword for such things but I wont type it here. Tomorrow there will be another buzzword but I have no idea what. But the stuff under-the-hood can be really good stuff no matter what you call the rose. this is why ,for clarification, when I talk and write I *try* to use the term "Text Serialized XML" when I talk about the stuff the XML spec is talking about. And then try to focus on a particular context where exact terminology is more meaningful. Now to jump to a cross-thread (sorry folks)
Standards committees. I was honored to have the opportunity to be on the EXI W3C wg for a while. I voluntarily left due to personal time commitments. Not only does EXI often casually claim to be "XML" ... <on topic connection> and its not entirely wrong depending on how you think about it, but more importantly I found the entire committee to be a very good mix of intelligent, well meaning, thoughtful and non political people. Definitely most did have personal agendas ... as they are sponsored by their employer to "get stuff done" ... but that's not inherently a bad thing. In fact it lead discussions towards practical solutions that would actually have immediate adopters. Ideally, I belive, standards should come *after* implementations
have shown a good workable solution, but I found the EXI committee in practice a good compromise. There was consideration to compatibility, but mainly compatibility with the previously published spec - NOT so much if company X was going to complain, but
rather "If it worked before will it still work". They were also very open to new ideas and re-examinations of previous assumptions.
So with this brief dip into standards committees, I would like to share the suggestion that one should try not to throw the baby out ... With a sample of 1, I can assert that not all standards committees are bad. -David ---------------------------------------- David A. Lee |