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Re: The year is 2027,and we need to examine archived XML docum

• From: Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@S...>
• To: abcoatesecure-xmldev@y...
• Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:20:43 -0700

On Sep 11, 2007, at 12:31 AM, Anthony B. Coates (XML-Dev) wrote:

> There are long-term financial instruments (like swaps: http:// 
> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swap_%28finance%29) which can extend to 30  
> years or more.  Many institutions are encoding these using FpML  
> (Financial Products Markup Language: http://www.fpml.org/), with  
> their own custom extensions, and they will need to be able to  
> access this data in 2037 or later.
>
> If XML has been surpassed in popularity by some competing  
> technology by 2027 or 2037, I suspect that what you will find is  
> that institutions who need it will maintain staff who know how to  
> use and run their XML tools

Maybe I'm missing something, but XML feels like a safer long-term bet  
to me if only because almost all those tools are (a) open-source, and  
(b) written in mainstream languages and (c) written for  
portability.   So you won't get the situation you get in some IT  
shops I've seen where a horrible old PDP-11 or Unisys box is kept  
limping along at great expense because they occasionally need some  
long-forgotten black-box proprietary app.  I.e., whatever it is we  
call a "computer" in 2027 will probably run libxml2 and Jing just  
fine.  -T

• References:
  • RE: "Open XML" et al... Blech... Re: Micros oft buys the Swedish vote on OOXML?
    • From: "Len Bullard" <cbullard@h...>
  • Re: "Open XML" et al... Blech... Re: Microsoft buys the Swedish vote on OOXML?
    • From: Rick Marshall <rjm@z...>
  • Re: "Open XML" et al... Blech... Re: Micros oft buys the Swedish vote on OOXML?
    • From: "Ken North" <kennorth@s...>
  • The year is 2027, and we need to examine archived XML documents from 2007 ...
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@m...>
  • Re: The year is 2027, and we need to examine archived XML documents from 2007 ...
    • From: "Ken North" <kennorth@s...>
  • Re: The year is 2027, and we need to examine archived XML documents from 2007 ...
    • From: "Anthony B. Coates (XML-Dev)" <abcoatesecure-xmldev@y...>