Cart
|
[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: SOAP, plague, love
 Eldar Musayev wrote: > I don't understand why we give so much attention to this article. [snip] > Sorry, just see no big event in this article. It's just an entertainment for > general public. I am well aware that my opinions on this subject are neither orthodox nor popular. Nevertheless, as in last week's threads on Napster http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/2000/04/0589.html , Bizcodes http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/2000/04/0786.html , and why XML is failing http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/2000/04/0676.html , the issues here (however naively the journalist may understand them) address the unique and fundamental nature of XML and of the Internet topology. When Don Box and Dave Winer insist that XML messaging and XML RPC are ultimately indistinguishable, they ignore the crucial question of 'from whose point of view?' As the sender, I may truly believe that my RPC request is nothing but a message. As the recipient, I am confronted with the expectation that I do something--that I perform some process. That raises the question of 'what process?', and there is an absolute, unbridgeable distinction between a process which I define and one which is prescribed, suggested, or standardized for me. In my unorthodox view, the specification of XML is a specification of syntax alone. The processing of that syntax to derive some semantics is my (and every node's) purely local and idiosyncratic affair. Philosophically, that is why there is an XML (syntax) parser at every node, not simply one canonical service implementation of The Parser. To the extent that I do anything unique as a node, I am uniquely aware of what it is that I do, how I do it, and what data is of interest to me in doing it. The syntax of XML is fashioned so that any node may send me its unique data content in a unique instance structure described by XML syntax. That node may not send me its unique (or received) opinion of how I am to process that data, or of how I am to understand it within my private context. Any such coercion, wherever it is characterized on the spectrum from friendly understanding to command, depends upon shared, agreed semantics which are inimical to the nature and the intent of XML. XML is defined to be extensible by (and in the uniquely XML case of well-formed, rather than valid syntax, only by) markup in the instance. My use of novel markup, conformant to XML 1.0 syntax, need never require anyone's prior agreement on canonical semantics to be derived from that markup. Indeed the expectation--unique to XML--is that those semantics will be individually, and quite probably differently, derived within the unique context of each consumer of that document. A truculent, though perhaps appropriate, defense of this unique value and power of XML might be to insist that those who want previously-agreed, shared semantics ought to go elsewhere (HTML perhaps?), as implicit semantics were designed out of XML in the beginning. So, yes, Peter Coffee's article is valuable to this community, as last week's 'XML is failing' and Napster articles were valuable (and this week's Bill Burnham column http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/comment/0,5859,2562985,00.html) because they illustrate for us all over again that the only clear and intellectually rigorous path out of the muddled understanding of XML as it might be presented in 'an entertainment for general public' is for us to maintain a clear distinction between what is XML syntax and what are bogus semantic accretions to it. Respectfully, Walter Perry *************************************************************************** This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ *************************************************************************** 
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! 
Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|
|||||||||
