Related link: http://www.advogato.org/article/820.html
Everyone's favourite game is to improve XML. It is not difficult to do. Getting anyone to care about or adopt the changes is the hard part. Who cares about XML 1.1, YAML, SML? Let alone kites flown by Tim Bray, James Clark, Norm Walsh, me, Uncle Tom Cobbly and all.
W3C's sassy fox Liam Quin has joined our whinging throng. He suggests that an XML 2.0 could have text and binary versions. Reading between the lines, to remake XML to support whatever "Binary XML" supports. And to make XML 2.0 good for people for whom XML 1.0 is unsatisfactory.
Sounds good. Rare revolutions rather than half-baked evolutions. The change that most people agree on now (i.e., trim DOCTYPE declarations and make good) are currently not required parts in XML 1.0 documents anyway, so there just isn't the dynamic of frustration that to force a change just on aesthetics and simplification.
My proposal is to have a regular alternation of XMLs. It works like this. Every five years, W3C determines who is happy with XML the way it is and who is unhappy. Then they define a shiny new XML which will make all the happy people unhappy, but make all the unhappy people happy. Well, as many as possible. Some people are just happy regardless of how much the cage is rattled. This musical chairs will ensure that, in the medium term, most people can join in the party. Very fair.
More seriously, I long for the day when W3C starts acting like the supplier of a regular service rather than a magician periodically pulling ever fatter bunnies from the hat dramatically: have regular periodic reviews (like ISO standard's 10-year reviews) and releases so that the technology can improve in a way that vendors and users can work with it. For example, to divide a recommendation's lifespan into four periods:
- Incoming. The first 3 years, when new implementations are coming out and new RECs are built.
- Current. The next 7 years when this version is king.
- Outgoing. The next 3 years when a new version is being progressively introduced. The changing of the guard by vendors.
- Golden Oldie. Still working fine in older systems which have no need to change.
Adopting new standards is one of the biggest ways organizations innovate. But after a technical standard has been adopted, unless that standard can grow, it sooner or later blocks rather than promotes improvement. Fundamental standards, such as XML, need to be capable of being factored into product managers', developers' and vendors' life-cycles in a dependable way.
How musical is your chair?
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Let's hope it's not the whole W3C that's losing the plot
Well, I am not entirely convinced that the world as we know it will end if there is a standard information-model-compatible non-text alternative to XML. The proud advantages of text on the wire sadly wilt once a system has been established and stabilized. If Binary XML is persued as an optimization for proven production systems, I don't see that it does harm.
Thanks but no thanks?
Thanks for the corection, Rick -- I'm fussy about the spelling partrly because Liam Quinn is actually someone else also from Toronto who is involved in HTML and CSS.
I'm trying hard to listen to people's needs. There are certainly people who need stability (or atleast, who need to be able to talk about how XML is stable) much as we used to say that in 100 years time people would still be able to read SGML files.
As an aside, W3C doesn't use Roberts' Rules of Order, by the way.
Going back to your main point, My interest..., yes, I think we need to consider moving the goalposts. I agree, too, that small changes are ineffective and not worth the cost: XML 1.1 had some major benefits for a significant proportion of the world's population, but has had little traction.
Liam
Thanks but no thanks?
Liam, Sorry about the misspelling: it is corrected now at the OReilly site.
You wrote One way to introduce an efficient interchange format might be to publish an XML 2.0 with two separate syntaxes: the human-editable textual format and the more efficient and probably binary format. looks like a suggestion of a technical approach to me! And a good one. I use the word could where you use the word might; is that such a misunderstanding?
That your interest in your blog is stimulating feedback is clear to anyone reading it; you don't need a parrot and I lack most feathers.
My interest in your blog is on a different set of points: your interesting suggestion (or non-suggestion, whatever) on dual binary/text standards; a possible principle behind this could be that without a moving the goalposts substantially we won't move beyond XML 1.0; that a decision to accomodate some new users may disaccomodate some of the current congregation, which obviously raises the issue of which users/uses are important, current or potential?; and that staged updates looks to me like a different approach to grand rabbits or unloved increments.
After all, XML moved to W3C in the first place because of Jon's frustration that SC34's 10-year review at ISO was delayed and unpromising. (And my suggestion of moving to staged updates is no criticism of your leadership of the W3C XML Activity than my reflection, after the event, that Roberts Rules were unsuitable for early stages of standards development were a reflection on Michael Sperberg-McQueen's leadership of the W3C XML Schemas WG.)
Thanks but no thanks?
The article I posted is entitled Where Should XML Go? and is actually soliciting feedback rather than sugesting a technical approach. Rick, it would be nice if you would at least take the time to spell my name properly, even if you don't read the articles I write.
Liam Quin
XML Activity Lead, W3C
PS: oops, a browser focus bug (I think) sent a draft before I'd finished typing, sorry about that
Thanks
Not bad
I should clarify, I don't think Liam's approach is a bad idea. Talk of improving XML rapidly degenerates into talk of "simplification", which is a euphemism for not caring about anyone else's babies in the bathwater. You can see this in the way terms like "mainstream" and "niche" flatulate their way into discussion. I take Liam's point to be that unless there are some new design goals or requirements that are substantially different from XML 1.0, the costs of altering XML 1.0 outweigh the disadvantages: I think he is right on that.
For revising XML, if you feed the same stuff as before into the sausage machine, pretty much the same sausage will come out. And when people see the same sausage with only gratiuitous differences, they will stick with the old.
Let's hope it's not the whole W3C that's losing the plot
Right on as always, Rick, The very thought of trying to meld the boo-bear binary XML into the same spec as our current textual friend leaves me ROTFLMAO.
The funny thing is that I believe XML is successful because it's text and it's simple. Yet, that success is attracting all sorts of people who want non-text and complex. Folks such as SOAPers and the Binary XML gang are not just content to have XML-based modules separate from XML itself. They want to be immortalized in the same packaging as XML. The ideal would be to coexist within XML 2.0.
I hope we text zealots get the counter-revolution rolling early enough to stop any such madness. It certainly does feel these days as if the entire W3C is eager to jump into left field, but we can hope there are some moderating voices left.