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Re: Out of topic or out of interest?

• To: Mike Champion <mc@x...>
• Subject: Re: Out of topic or out of interest?
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: 03 May 2002 11:04:18 -0400
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <TPSNMGXTHD2ZNMB0IHNPOLIKEHG4Z.3cd29db5@MChamp>
• References: <TPSNMGXTHD2ZNMB0IHNPOLIKEHG4Z.3cd29db5@MChamp>

On Fri, 2002-05-03 at 10:24, Mike Champion wrote:
> It's precisely the question of how compatible they really area that
> makes it worth discussing on xml-dev, IMHO. 

That's a reasonable perspective, though I'll admit feeling that it's
akin to a sense of perverse duty - I do things that I hate because I
hate them, and sometimes that produces more motivation than I have for
things I like to do...

> Yes, the debate is
> conducted everywhere, but even some very knowledgeable people 
> who haven't been exposed to the level of discussion here don't
> seem to "get it" -- The REST vs RPC debate isn't about GET vs POST,
> or scripting vs typed languages,  or doing by hand vs using a Visual
> programming tool, or SOAP vs generic XML .... it's about 
> identifying services by their URI so that they are REALLY part of the Web.
> I honestly don't think that message has come across in the numerous
> lists and weblogs as well as it has here.  True, that's only tangentially
> related to XML in reality, but much of the world seems to think  
> web services are the only thing XML has to offer, so the
> counter arguments need to be prepared and sharpened. 

To the extent that XML was supposed to be SGML for the Web I think this
makes a lot of sense.  (I've been wandering through that territory for
the past few days on my Advogato diary -
http://www.advogato.org/person/simonstl/)

On the other hand, I'm not sure the "XML community" speaks with a single
voice.  To the extent that members have tried lately, they've been
ridiculed as a mob, and I'm waiting for another round of "paranoid...
conspiracy theorist" to get started.

I'm not entirely sure that developing technical arguments to battle what
seem to be pretty purely business impulses is worthwhile.  How sharp do
the arguments need to be when the Web Services side is flaunting its
bulldozers?  I guess I wish I had a little more faith in the
institutions supporting XML activity.

Right now, I'm suspecting that a wiser route is to continue development
of technology which really does operate at the markup level, keep
working with REST, and wait for the next cycle of "distributed objects
will save the world" to come to its natural conclusion.  Even Joel
Spolsky says:

   Just watch, I predict within three weeks InfoWorld runs out of ideas
   for Web Services stories and has to run a big spread on how Web 
   Services were "overhyped" and now CTOs are "revolting" against 
   "vaporware."
   (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20020425.html , end)

Web Services is at least spewing a lot of XML into the world.  Whether
it works as planned by its promoters or not, more XML may one day mean
more work for people who don't mind getting their hands dirty touching
it.

> Right ... there is a lot more commonality within the various flavors of the
> "XML and/or Infoset as generic resource representation for the Web" 
> view than there is between this view and the "XML and the Web are generic middleware
> for moving serialized objects between applications" view.

Yep.
 
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com

• References:
  • Re: Out of topic or out of interest?
    • From: Mike Champion <mc@x...>

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