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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: XML is easy
 From: Derek Denny-Brown [mailto:derekdb@m...] >Given the amount of time I spend explaining 'simple' Namespace, XPath, >XSD, DTD, etc.. issues to people, I would fall heavily on the 'not easy' >side of the issue. XML is easy. XML + the dozens of application languages that make up an XML system are hard. If one does simple things with XML, one still has to either learn those systems or build one. Starting with the original mythical DePH writing a parser in a weekend, one could say it wasn't too bad, but that isn't enough to do much, so yes, it becomes hard very quickly regardless of the path one takes. >The problem is not so much that things are >complicated, but that things are not what is expected by a large >percentage of people trying to _use_ it. That's a fact. OOPMen see look for oopies, TableHeads for rows and columns, CSVers for empty space and commas, and so on. One almost has to be a docHerder to like a hierarchy and even then, WinHelp poisoned the shepherds here. Only HTML has managed to dent their heads and that only after it was made to look like WinHelp (HTMLHelp). Really, all they needed was an easy way to do full-text indexing because of WinHelp making everyone use Find over a TOC. >Part of my job ends up being to convince people that XML really is >complex enough to mandate using existing tools, rather than >rolling-your-own. Flat pack or bulk? :-) >XML is simple enough to fool people into thinking >that they can get away with customized code, but in the open world of >the internet, this is dangerous. I am told that skydiving is easy; the ground is hard. There are at least two dimensions here: 1. What is the cost of security and reliability, the general notion of Quality Of Service? 2. What means can be used to contract for high QOS such that the procured services will meet those requirements? >A public webservice should only accept >_well_formed_ XML, not just something which looks like XML, otherwise >you end up with customers depending on the ability to accept >non-well-formed XML. That is one requirement. It creates a self-reinforcing therefore sustaining and recurring cost. >Convincing your average developer that standards >conformance is like pulling teeth. Too low a level. You are herding cats. The sensitive spot in the system is the chain from RFP to Contract. This is where systems are cited. The weakness in that chain as evidenced by the RDDL and Negotiation threads is there is no credible source that can be cited for reliable systems meeting criteria such as you begin to describe (well-formed). That is why firms such as Microsoft DO achieve lock-in and why I say that some of the W3C and other XML leaders cannot fathom this, but in fact, use tactics that make that lock-in inevitable. Unless the RFP and contracts personnel can cite by formal identifier, solid standards (not specifications for systems development), fairly mindlessly, the result is that they cite vendor-specific systems which they are certain meets these requirements. It is an issue of who does what kind of work and what level of understanding is needed to efficiently do that work. Proposal writers and contracts specialists, as you say, aren't XML-Devers. (that is why I have a job...). Other than NIST, where does one go to get a list of Internet systems or standards meeting requirements clear enough and proven that stand up to the rigors of contract-based procurements? The W3C? No. Those pages are mash of competing, let a thousand flowers bloom but don't weed, dodgy documents. ISO? That used to be the answer and if we are astute business persons, it may be again sooner than later. Microsoft? In combination with Oracle, Sun and IBM, that is what we ARE doing. It works actually but is that the way it is supposed to work, or inevitably, must? It is the system integrators, the companies that sell to the companies, not the general public, that make these decisions because it is their job to do exactly that. len 
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