Irwin, Oleg, and Jeff have all note that the XML has finally reached its Seventh Birthday. Jeff asks what we were doing back then.Well, I was spending a good amount of time with Forte and TOOL (think VB, but... not) writing a scheduling application for telemarketers and a system that played back IVR responses using that same GUI. I liked Forte, it was all about services and platform abstraction. The whole problem with it, from a dev's point of view, is that it was pretty much a closed box. Sure, you might be able to invoke a DLL wrapped with a C++ exposer. Even Sun realized that Web Services were a much better idea. Within six months of starting on those projects, I was on my way HDR. It really wasn't until SQLXML Web Release One that I “got” why XML was important. With a few days, I had written my first article about FOR XML queries. Then real fun began.
In its first seven years, it seems to me what XML has done pales somewhat in comparision as to what XML has enable other things to do. Web Services? Sure, that's a biggie. But the world is more than just SOAP. Its RSS, RDF and dozens of others like HR-XML. Heck you can hardly touch anything IT anymore with touching at least some XML.The beauty of XML is that its super glue in alot of ways.
There's a long post coming about XML though that I really don't like the tone of. You see, I'm really starting to wonder if we've gotten the majority of the value XML that we ever will as a medium and as a message. In some senses, I'm wondering if XML -- in and of itself -- isn't as mature as it will ever get. One really only has to watch the the discussions on XML-DEV to see two or three camps already clearly forming about the future of XML. Sure, all of that could lead to one better XML. That's the best case but hardest to achieve. What's easier to do, but seems to me is the worst case outcome is the fracturing of XML into variants instead of versions. That wouldn't be growing, that'd be growing out.
Which bring me back full circle: we're not far from a critical time with XML I think. The more complex we make XML in an effort to solve hard problems, the more we reduces it ability as an enabler. Like Forte, XML has worth because of how simple it made doing things. Where Forte failed, at least for me, was that it made doing simple things with it hard.
Shame on us if we let XML grow up that way!
His Instant Messenger display name includes some very valuable advice:
Send Messages Not Serialized Object Graphs
Just a reminder that the
call for Speakers remains open on the
Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) web site. Since it appears that I may be going, I'm thinking about putting in for session or two on XML in SQL Server and SQL Express. If you're going too, consider submitting. You don't need to be “rock star,” just be passionate about your technology interests and have a good story to tell.