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RE: Why is there little usage of XML on the "visible Web"?


RE:  Why is there little usage of XML on the "visible Web"?
On Tue, 18 Jul 2006, Didier PH Martin wrote:

> Hello Chris,
>
> Chris said:
> For a developer, at the present time, sending XML to the browser may lack
> a certain appeal because of the limits of browser implementation of XSLT,
> particularly XSLT 2.0.  Tools available to the developer on the server-end
> are far more robust and up-to-date.
>
> Didier replies:
> I guess that you mean here that because of roughly 4% of non XSLT enabled
> browsers; client side transformation is not done on the client side. This
> even if roughly 96% of the current browsers are XSLT enabled.

I referred to XSLT _2.0_, which is not supported by current browsers.  Not 
even Firefox fully supports this standard yet.  I'm currently working on a 
project where that is the exact reason why I am not supplying XML to the 
browser.  Many engines available to developers implement XSLT 2.0.

> So, the problem is not a
> capacity problem but more a social and human problem and some tools lacking
> like for instance the capacity to easily marshall in and out data packaged
> in XML format.

I'm in full agreement with you here.  The state of tools is constantly 
changing and there is usually some way to work around limitations.  There 
is still a great deal of non-XHTML code out there on the web.  We need to 
be flexible in dealing with the web as deployed, not as idealized by 
standards bodies.

> Finally I think that a lot of data publisher are targeting people reading
> the content and not processing agent at the other end of the pipe. This can
> easily be understood by the fact that raw data can be re-packaged without
> any clear benefit to the original publisher. This last fact explains a lot
> why we do not see data packaged as XML but more readable material packaged
> in HTML. It's simple, There are more vested interest and benefits to provide
> reading material (or video content) than to provide raw data or potentially
> provide data that can be easily re-packaged without giving benefits to the
> original producers.

An excellent point.  If you are publishing good well-designed XML you are 
enabling end users to re-purpose your data to their own benefit, not 
necessarily your benefit.  If you feel you have reason to keep this 
ability to yourself, you will not publish XML.  This will keep much data 
that could be published as XML from being published this way.

Chris

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