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RE: Hostility to "binary XML" (was Re: XML 20 04 web

• To: 'Liam Quin' <liam@w...>
• Subject: RE: Hostility to "binary XML" (was Re: XML 20 04 weblog items?)
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <len.bullard@i...>
• Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 16:11:16 -0600
• Cc: xml-dev@l...

It is becoming a value proposition with a scaling effect. 
We tend to fear changing XML because it touches so much 
of the infrastructure, yet one can turn that on its head 
and say that improvements here could pay back handsomely 
for the same reason.

Tim Bray made an excellent point in his closing keynote 
when he compared it to AWT and Swing:  if the tech needs 
improving, just do it.  Have the fortitude to step up to 
the task.

That's not aimed at any person here, past of present. I 
just am not persuaded that the SGML connections are buying 
us a lot that we need, and the compatibility issues do 
seem to stand in the way of easier progress.

Sorry you weren't there, Liam. It was a rather good 
party for geeksLikeUs.  I hope to do it again.

No one ever looks like their mail.  Thank goodness...

len

-----Original Message-----
From: 'Liam Quin' [mailto:liam@w...]
Sent: Monday, November 22, 2004 4:03 PM
To: Bullard, Claude L (Len)
Cc: xml-dev@l...
Subject: Re:  Hostility to "binary XML" (was Re:  XML
20 04 weblog items?)


On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 03:50:42PM -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> Would this situation improve if an effort to create a binary 
> were prepositioned by an effort to improve/simplify XML?  

It would make no sense to me to start work on a new format for
interchanging XML without at least asking this question, and in
particulay asking it of people who are not currently using XML as
well as those who are.  "XML would let us do XX but YYY" is
always interesting to hear.  Of course, there's usually the
reply "but actually, ZZZ" and sometimes this is sufficient.

So yes, I think we (W3C, publishers of XML) should consider
working with the wider XML community, and also with some of the
communities represented for example on the Binary WG, who are
currently on the fringes of the XML world and would like to
move closer under the warm blanket of XML love, and consider
further simplifications.  Whether that means abandoning SGML
itself I don't know either way right now.

> PS:  Top Impression of XML 2004:  
I'm sorry I wasn't at the conference now - I haven't caught up
with you for years.

Liam

-- 
Liam Quin, W3C XML Activity Lead, http://www.w3.org/People/Quin/
http://www.holoweb.net/~liam/
barefoot on the Web

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