Re: [xml-dev] My vote for the coolest technologies of 2014

On 30 December 2014 at 13:37, Costello, Roger L. <costello@mitre.org> wrote:

Hi Folks,

Here's my vote for the coolest technologies of 2014:

1. Text (not binary)

2. Regular expressions (regexes)

3. Schematron

Text allows us to interact with computers at a human level. I think the text abstraction is one of mankind's most monumental achievements. I see text-based formats on the rise while binary formats are pushed to lower and lower levels of the computing stack.

Regexes power everything, it seems. They allow us to express razor-sharp data constraints in XML Schemas and JSON Schemas. They are the primary tool used to describe tokens in lexical analyzers.

Schematron is simple and yet extraordinarily powerful. Whoever created the XSLT program to convert a Schematron document into an executable XSLT program should get a Turing Award, it's fantastic.

What's your vote for the coolest technologies of 2014?

/Roger

Forget about flyiing cars and hoverboards. We have fucking computer laboratories on our pockets. The smartphone.

Its possible because some humble technology: better batteries.

In these phone people have things like Facebook. Facebook is programmed in PHP compiled to native. Your phone and Facebook talk invariants of text formats, like JSON or XML.

Then you have 11 years olds installing Minecraft servers on virtual servers for his friends. 11 years olds configuring java servers, cron's, launch scripts.

Computers allow us to be has dumb as we desire, or as smart as we desire. The full range.

App Stores are still popular, and they are basically curated app repositories. Much like debian. Every iOS, Android, Playstation, XBox .... every tablet, smartphone, etc.. have access to a curated repository of apps where is safe*** to install everything and uninstall everything. For the first time, people can toy with computers and software and be safe that nothing is going to kill the hardware. Its a new era of computer systems not for us (geeks that don't need it) but for average joe guys and soccer mom girls. Theres a tiny apt-get ish api on each of these devices, powered not by the Ethical Contract of Debian, but a EULA.

1. Smartphones

2. App Stores

3. Text (UTF8)