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interoperability (was Re: Obfuscating XML with namespaces)

• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• To: xml-dev@l...
• Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 12:31:04 -0400

At 10:15 AM 10/9/00 -0400, Jonathan Robie wrote:
>On the other hand, the world should also accept some less-than-beautiful 
>standards if we want interoperability. Since XML is often used as a hub 
>language, interoperability is key. Suppose part of the market decides to 
>accept YML, another part sticks with XML, and another part accepts ZML. Add 
>seven or eight different schema languages, each purported to be the 
>simplest or the best by some vendor, and a couple of programming languages, 
>each of which is best. Now shake thoroughly and ask the marketplace to 
>decide. The result? The marketplace decides it is confused.

While I agree with Jonathan in general here, I'm not sure that his point
about interoperability actually works with the materials the W3C has
produced thus far.

Interoperability doesn't appear to be the highest priority for a lot of
these standards, as even XML 1.0 has a few options that can cause serious
breakdowns, and Namespaces in XML has caused more interoperability problems
while claiming to be addressing interoperability by providing unique
identifiers for names. [1]

The W3C itself is presently supporting at least two forms of
document-description technology (XML Schemas and DTDs) and hosts the specs
for four more (XML Data, SOX, DCD, and DDML.)  RDF is also a contender in
that space, and also overlaps some of XLink's functionality.  In
stylesheets, XSL and CSS aren't exactly interoperable, and the differences
between formatting properties in the two are documented, but discouraging
nonetheless.  (No one seems to have figured out how XLink and the style
sheet specs will get along.)  The DOM is breaking into lightly-connected
modules, with extra pieces provided in other specs, notably SVG and SMIL.

I'm not sure interoperability as commonly understood is really a priority
at the W3C.  It's no wonder that developers are confused about which tools
to use and how to integrate them, even without the additional possibilities
of JDOM, RELAX, and others.

Eventually, I think we all hope that the dream of the Semantic Web will be
able to handle all of this, but I think we've got a long and confusing path
ahead.


[1] - http://www.simonstl.com/articles/interop/  

Simon St.Laurent
XML Elements of Style / XML: A Primer, 2nd Ed.
XHTML: Migrating Toward XML
http://www.simonstl.com - XML essays and books

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