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Re: How Much XML Can There Be?

• From: Peter Flynn <peter@silmaril.ie>
• To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
• Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 23:00:05 +0000

On 01/19/2014 07:53 PM, Costello, Roger L. wrote:
> Although each special field in XML can be expected to become 
> exhausted, and although the exponential growth in XML production is 
> bound to level off sooner or later, it is hard to foresee an end to
> all XML production.

Back when it was new, I expressed the view that XML should ultimately
blend in with the wainscoting and become like domestic utilities
supplies: a common carrier, robust and largely invisible except to the
people who design, build, and maintain it.

That is probably far too rosy a view, as the speed with which
technologies are supplanted is on a rising curve at the moment.  Barring
a major paradigm shift, we will eventually get to the stage where the
population is about as aware of XML as they are of volts, amps, ohms,
and watts, which is to say, not very.

When you plug in your toaster, the plug may communicate with the socket
and decide on the parameters of the power requirements, and may use XML
to do so; the book you read may use XML to negotiate with your implants
over when to turn the page, as well as using XML for the encoding of the
text.

There again, our governments may be subverted by corporations, and we
might all be using proprietary protocols under threat of imprisonment...

///Peter

• References:
  • How Much XML Can There Be?
    • From: "Costello, Roger L." <costello@mitre.org>