[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] Re: Friday Flame Fest, anyone???
4/5/2002 9:56:00 PM, Betty Harvey <harvey@e...> wrote: > >Here is a link to the entire report: > > http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02327.pdf > Thanks for the pointer! That report looks much, much better than the article's summary implied. I have only skimmed it, but it looks like the discussion of EDI and XML is quite informative and thought-provoking. Also, there is quite a balanced and thoughtful discussion of the merits of a "top down" approach where schemas are imposed by the Powers that Be vs a "bottom up" approach where schemas are developed and refined to fit individual agencies' needs, and coordinated via a central registry. My biggest problem with the report -- again, from about 10 minutes of skimming, not a thorough study -- is a rather touching faith in the W3C to have gotten the technology right, implying that the challenges are now on users to define and agree on standard schemas for various application domains. I would doubt if anyone reading this list with an open mind believes that the basic technologies are as solid as the report seems to imply -- the namespace issues we've talked about recently and schema interoperability come to mind. Likewise, the web service architectural challenges (e.g., the REST debate) and SOAP interoperability issues are not hinted at in the very short treatment of web services. I guess I also disagree with the report's implied faith in bureaucracy to come up with solid applications/schemas. I know that this is widely disputed, but one could argue that nothing they talk about in the report couldn't have been done with SGML 10 years ago; the reasons that didn't happen were not so much technical as human -- political, bureaucratic, psychological, and the simple fact that the job of defining monster "one size fits all" uber-DTDs is almost beyond the scope of human intelligence, even without political and bureaucratic hinderances. To touch on my favorite subject, the power of XML (IMHO) comes from its ability to deal with chaos gracefully rather than insisting on order. I could also make the obligatory wheeze and suggest that the possibility of "leadership" from either the career civil servants or the political crowd in power are somewhere between infitesimal and nonexistent ... Well, MAYBE after Dubya restores peace to the Middle East, disposes of Saddam Hussein, brings bin Laden to justice, and figures out who to blame for the Enron debacle, then he'll have time to sort out the REALLY hard problems of defining universal XML schemas :~)
|
PURCHASE STYLUS STUDIO ONLINE TODAY!Purchasing Stylus Studio from our online shop is Easy, Secure and Value Priced! Download The World's Best XML IDE!Accelerate XML development with our award-winning XML IDE - Download a free trial today! Subscribe in XML format
|