[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] WAP and Disruption (was Re: XML=WAP? And DOA?)
1/13/2002 5:02:56 PM, "Jens Jakob Andersen, PDI" <jens.jakob.andersen@p...> wrote: > > Has XML reached the stage of WAP? I.e. has XML proven > itself to be so complex when being used for > real-life applications, that it will die a silent death, > just like WAP? > One more thing ... I would argue (in 20:20 hindsight) that WAP is dying because it violates both Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law -- it assumed that cellphones would be severely bandwidth limited for some time to come, and didn't leverage the installed base of HTTP/HTML infrastructure and expertise. I'll predict a similar fate for other technologies (Curl comes to mind ...) whose value depends on saving bytes or cycles and requires one to re-write applications built on popular technologies with new or proprietary technologies. "Disruptive technologies" is a buzzword among marketing types these days, but if you read Christensen's book, the people being disrupted by small disk drives, small motorcycles, hydraulics in mechanical excavators, etc. were the producers, not the consumers. WAP (and Curl) disrupt both producers and consumers. [Of course, if Curl manages to get distributed with every browser and WAP put on every cellphone, this factor becomes less salient ...] Using XML behind the scenes to integrate applications, provide a neutral content format that can be translated into HTML or WML or simply styled with CSS or XSLT, syndicate content, perform cross-platform RPC, etc. doesn't disrupt the ultimate consumers, so I don't think that WAP's fate foretells much about the fate of XML. Likewise with complexity. The growing complexity of the XML specs is a problem for the producers of XML tools, but the ultimate consumers are probably oblivious to whether "plumbing" under the floor is built using well-formed XML or "PSVIcally correct" XML. Those that actually use the XML are probably just using whatever part of the specs that they understand (note how little of "XML" (broadly defined) that SOAP depends on). WAP consumers had no such choice.
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