[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: Microsoft's Role in the XML Community (WAS RE: Important: The SAXC
> >XML shapes behavior because of the way one > >has to go about implementing it. Few technologies > >I've worked with require as much cooperation > >and negotiation among "the humans" as markup > >does. That is a strength where the culture > >is fit, that is, demonstrates a proficiency > >at cooperation and negotiation, and a true > >"killer app" where they don't because it > >can quickly put an unfit company out of business. > > > I agree completely with this. When I talk and tutor on "XML" (which is > wider than XML V1.0) this is the area that I highlight first. > It is about > humans cooperating to make it possible for machines to talk > to each other. > XML-DEV was founded very much on this philosophy. > I have to disagree just a bit. I think that successful implementation of EDI took much more consensus among the parties involved. Of course we all have to agree on what XSLT is and what XML is, but after that, it is much easier than ever before to deal with a pragmatic world where people disagree. I worked with automotive systems using EDIFACT and X12 many years ago, and have seen all sorts of firsthand trouble with semantics/metadata and other such disagreements in other areas of data exchange. If you think it was *ever* possible for people to do meaningful interchange without intense cooperation between humans, you are perhaps new to the field. Pragmatically, universal concensus is impossible to achieve, especially as systems grow larger and more heterogeneous. EDI being successful required automotive companies pressuring vendors and pushing frameworks and even tools down to suppliers. This sort of centralized authority can scale only so far. In my opinion, the very beauty of XML is that you have semantics shipped with the data (and as XML Schema gets ratified, this is even more useful). So now I do not have to demand complete agreement with you to exchange data. I can transform and translate what I need, and we now have to agree only on the parts we need to agree on. We've always had to get human cooperation to exchange data -- the only thing XML changes is that it's easier to work with people who disagree with us now. Joshua Allen Microsoft eBusiness West Region "No challenge can withstand the assault of sustained thinking" - Voltaire *************************************************************************** This is xml-dev, the mailing list for XML developers. To unsubscribe, mailto:majordomo@x...&BODY=unsubscribe%20xml-dev List archives are available at http://xml.org/archives/xml-dev/ ***************************************************************************
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