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XML has the potential to revolutionise data exchange but the myriad standards and specifications surrounding the meta-language could seriously discourage users in the short-term "The impact of XML on our daily lives and business processes is going to be felt in waves over the next 20 years. Ignoring XML now is like ignoring the World Wide Web in 1993 or ignoring client server in 1989." Charles Abrams' views on XML may sound grandiose -- for a Gartner research director with 21 years in the industry -- but he’s not alone in his zealous support of the meta-language. Bill Gates proclaimed back in 2000 that the industry and Microsoft "should build their futures around XML". While it seems that Microsoft has followed the advice of its glorious leader, with the .Net platform built entirely around XML’s cross-platform features, end-user organisations, while enthusiastic about the potential, are being a little more circumspect with actual deployments. This hesitation has probably got a lot to do with the relative immaturity of the meta-language. The fragmentation in XML standards and specifications can be intimidating to the uninitiated and potentially damaging to anyone using XML for mission-critical operations. Since XML first emerged from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1998, the number of XML-associated standards has accelerated at a phenomenal rate. Late last year Gartner issued a report warning that unless there is a major change in the way XML-defined standards are developed, it will cost businesses dearly in the long run. "At the very least, the proliferation of standards could result in millions of dollars in lost effort for organisations utilising the meta-language; at worst it will corrupt data and compromise business-critical transactions and operations because different parts of the same company will process conflicting XML messages without knowing it," the report concluded. Gartner predicts that, from 2001 to 2004, companies will spend more than $3bn worldwide on XML modelling activities with no return on $2bn of it. The problem lies with the lack of rules on how an XML standard should be developed. For example, TaXML, an XML standard relating to the lifecycle of a tax case, and Value Chain Markup Language (VCML) were originally developed by single companies. The fact that one company can create a standard is a contradiction in terms but there is nothing to stop it happening. "There are so many specifications under development in XML right now that no one can keep track of them. There are hundreds of them," said Gartner's Abrams.
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Talkback
Nothing new here. When was this article written? This article could easily be a reprint from a couple of years ago.
I agree...the concept of XML started of with the idea that it is visually easier to read and expandable from a programmatic manner. Along with the schemas, it was supposed to be easier for everyone to interpret and present the data systematically.
However, reality is that the standards for some XMLs specify so many fields that ultimately the end users have to chose which fields work for them and again define how they are going to interpret each field regardless of what the standards specify. This is just like transferring data the old way - binary or even CSV.
Does anyone actually listen to the Gartner Group or it's analysts?
The analyst in this case says that anyone can develop an XML standard and that in his view
this can be a real problem.
That's the whole point.
Anyone can define how they want their data to be organized and define a schema to clarify what rules the data must follow. The most important thing though is that these various rulesets can be easily identified by the use of namespaces.
Namepsaces combined with schemas make any concern about different standards mostly irrelevant.
If every company in an industry defines their own schema/namespace then it may take some time for them all to come to some agreement.
Fortunately, what is more likely to happen is that the first few to bring a solution into play will allow the remaining players to compare the merits and perhaps agree on one that best meets their needs.
Ultimately, this will weed out the less useful schemas and allow the most valued one to dominate.
XML is neither complex or new -- perhaps to someone that doesn't work with data on a regular basis, but such people should not be the standard by which technology is judged. SGML has been around for 25+ years, and XML is little different. We have finally moved to a point where there are platforms available to structure data in a way that can be filtered and interpreted by interchange modules and passed to business partners--all I see in this article are complaints that it doesn't happen instantaneously and effortlessly. Listen, if that's what you're looking for, then there should only be one software company and the government (perhaps the United Nations) should set data structure in stone with their own standards...if the complete nonsense of such a suggestion isn't obvious, you are in big trouble my friend.
The landscape is changing making it easier for the average person to do XML.
The answer is in templates and patterns that
fit common re-usable models.
The new VisualScript product from Smartdraw fits this bill, as does technologies like the CAM templating approach from the OASIS CAM team, and of course Microsoft is pinning its hopes on InfoDocs
Crossing the gap between the technical world of the XML saavy to the real world of end users is the key. HTML did this - now XML needs to find its way.