Re: [xml-dev] IEEE Computer: "XML Raises Concerns" (Was Re: [xml-dev] XML Sucks)

Chiusano Joseph wrote:

> <Quote>
> 2) extensively describing a document's contents and appearing in plain text creates security concerns.
> </Quote>
>
> XML Encryption?

I'm sorry, but at a stroke this eliminates the chief functional advantage of XML:  providing via markup interoperability between processes which do not share identical a priori understandings and indeed may not
know of each other's existence. For security, http (SSL if required) connections provide what is required for the one-to-one interchange of documents in a RESTful fashion. The fundamental point is that only
documents are exchanged--not datastructures 'intended' for a particular sort of processing, and most certainly not semantics which one party or another might suppose inhere in a particular understanding of a
particular document and which as a nasty side effect require that each party to a document exchange be 'semantically' precisely what his counterparty supposes him to be.

Respectfully,

Walter Perry