[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] No Standard Before Its Time (WAS RE: Parsing Performance)
Re standards: note that good content standards can struggle in a market not ready because the platforms can not do the job properly. VRML is a pretty good example of an open standard (ISO) that while holding a sizable following, has not prospered economically because the major market for online 3D (games) has such stringent performance requirements, a general language fails to perform adequately. The solution is proprietary languages and implementations built over 'closer to the metal' standards such as OpenGL and its like. With the advent of the P3s and P4s, high performance graphics cards and cheap memory, the performance of the worlds built five years ago in VRML is acceptable today. But the gaming community has moved on to even higher fidelity requirements. Even with an X3D (an XML version of VRML), it will be tough for the language to emerge because it not only has to hatch, it will have to crawl on its fins across six acres of muck on its way to the ocean. The other problem is the size of the early adopting community and how fast they scale. Real-time 3D requires talent, talent requires tools, and tools require developers and developers require money. Getting the suction hose started today is a lot tougher than it was five years ago. Economics aside, the platforms and the languages have to converge in an easy to apply form. Standards should not be created before their time and they should be created by the industry that needs them for the public that wants them. It is a problem when well-intentioned amateurs get into that game. len From: Bill de hOra [mailto:bill@d...] Martin Soukup wrote: > The biggest problem with large open standards is that they must serve a > wide community of users and through that an even wider range of > customers. I guess the issue here is that one should have the option of > doing things either way. Wouldn't that serve the most people? Possibly not. The thing with open standards is that they act as a public good (if you like, they have macro-economic value) as well as serving to increase the size of market by drawing in more buyers. Not everyone gets served equally by them (there will be detrimental, micro-economic consequences for individuals). If there is a bias in standards, it's usually towards consumers of the products the standards target, not the sellers - arguably by the time a sector needs standardizing, the sellers have made sufficient margin as opaque markets tend to favour sellers. Fwiw, Eric Newcomer's article which Len linked to is a resonable portrayal of what goes when standards come to town, though I agree that the choices are not so clear cut - differnt areas and verticals will move at different rates.
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