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XML in O2K (was "XML in .NET")

• From: "DuCharme, Robert" <Robert.DuCharme@m...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 13:26:53 -0400

>Chris Lovett [clovett@m...] wrote:
>But I know for a fact from the Office people I have worked with that
>making Office 2000 a general XML authoring tool was not a design goal.

No one is expecting a general XML authoring tool in Office. This would imply
the ability to edit documents conforming to any DTD. Those of us who
attempted to use SGML Author for Word know that this is not realistic. 

If Office apps could save documents as valid XML conforming to some
published DTD (or schema) of Microsoft's own design, that would be great.
People could write apps (or XSLT stylesheets) to read these and do things
with them. 

The frustration with the O2K format is over the embedding of XML chunks
(excuse me, "islands") within strange MSHTML markup that makes any XML
parser choke. (And I don't care if Navigator doesn't choke on it--it's not
standard HTML because it's not W3C HTML, but a proprietary extension of it.)
Why does Microsoft brag[1] about their use of XML in Office if they have
erected barriers to the use of this XML by others? Because it's such a
trendy standard? It comes off as trying to take credit for providing the
advantages of the trendy standard without actually doing so. Of course, this
is what marketing people are paid to do. 

Bob DuCharme          www.snee.com/bob           <bob@  
snee.com>  "The elements be kind to thee, and make thy
spirits all of comfort!" Anthony and Cleopatra, III ii

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/press/1997/dec97/HTMLPR.asp and
http://www.microsoft.com/PressPass/press/1998/Oct98/XMLcapPR.asp

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