[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message]

RE: Why Standards?

• To: 'Jim Ancona' <jim@a...>
• Subject: RE: Why Standards?
• From: Allen Razdow <arazdow@m...>
• Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 10:29:11 -0400
• Cc: "'xml-dev@l...'" <xml-dev@l...>

My grandma used to say "a standard is, as a standard does".  Participating
in several list-servers for emerging standards as a potential user, I can
add my observation that one reason for low success-rates from standards
bodies is that they tend to be naïve about management of marketing
requirements.  Software companies work hard to support product marketing
staff to force R&D to consider what's actually required by intended users.
Many standards groups are like R&D departments enjoying a vacation from
pesky market requirements (present company excepted!)

To me, XML seems little more than a standard language for representing
abstract syntax, handling pesky issues like namespaces and references
(xpath).  In the UNIX era (is it over?) Yacc and Lex provided a framework
that allowed nifty little languages to be invented easily, for any purpose.
Perhaps XML is more useful in that it eliminates the lexer/parser layer, and
encourages us to exchange information at the parse-tree level, instead of
bothering with lots of unique (though sometimes interesting) languages. 

-Allen

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Ancona [mailto:jim@a...] 
Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 9:56 AM
To: xml-dev@l...
Cc: jim.waldo@e...
Subject:  Why Standards?

Jim Waldo has a weblog post at

http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=4840

which, while not mentioning XML, seems to relate pretty well to some of 
our standards permathreads on xml-dev. He writes:

"I can't think of a single standard that was invented by committee that 
has survived in the marketplace. The long-standing standards are those 
that were first de facto standards, and were described (no invented) by 
the standards bodies."

Perhaps XML is a counter-example, although one could object that:

- XML is a codification of SGML best practices for the web, and hence 
was described, not invented. To me, XML seems like a bit of a hybrid, 
neither invented from scratch, nor a straight documentation of existing 
practice.

- It's too soon to tell. At five years old, XML seems to be doing pretty 
well, but it certainly isn't up there with IP or ANSI C as long-lasting 
standards go.

Some of the follow-on XML standards like XML Schema and XQuery are 
clearly in the "invented" category. It will be interesting keep Jim's 
comments in mind as we watch their progress

Jim


-----------------------------------------------------------------
The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an
initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org>

The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/

To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription
manager: <http://lists.xml.org/ob/adm.pl>

• Prev by Date: Why Standards?
• Next by Date: [off-topic] xtext -- encoding declarations for text
• Previous by thread: Why Standards?
• Next by thread: [off-topic] xtext -- encoding declarations for text
• Index(es):
  • Date
  • Thread