Re: [xml-dev] markup humility

[Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@allette.com.au>]

On Thursday, February 17, 2022, Simon St.Laurent <simonstl@simonstl.com> wrote:

>  For much of the world, XML and its related technologies are a lingering bad memory.

You talk as if that were a bad thing!

But almost whenever they use a word processor, spreadsheet, or presentation program, their bliss is ignorance: there is XML under the hood.

 For much of the world of developers (if that is what you mean by "the world"), relational databases are antiquated too. And we are better of having the choice of different levels of databases and DBMSs.  Most developers do not work in industrial-scale publishing.  If XML will only be used in, say 100,000 companies rather than 10,000,000 companies, amd avoids the applications it is no good at, then hooray!

Consider a tool for attaching aglets. Or an aquatic robot for photographing reactors in Fukushima. Most people do not need them. But niche does not mean unsuccessful. 

To me, XML's problem with all the larding-on of stuff stopped getting worse a decade ago: indeed XML has improved as stuff is jettisoned (SOAP, etc), and now XML's problem is that its frozen syntax does not trigger new uses or visions.

(Hi Simon, I hope 2022 finds you well.)

Rick