BYTE.com > Tangled in the Threads > 2001 > April
Report From XML DevCon 2001
By Jon Udell
April 12, 2001
(Report From XML DevCon 2001
: Page 1 of 3 )
I've just returned from the XML Developer's Conference in New York.
The upshot, from my perspective, is both good news and bad news. Let's start with the good, of which there is plenty. There can be no doubt the fabric of the next-generation Internet is being woven of XML. As I'm sure is true for many of you, XML has already insinuated itself into many aspects of my daily work. I write this column in XHTML, because it's easy (for me) to do so, and because well-formedness helps ensure clean HTML rendering.
I promote my own website and others that I work on, using RSS newsfeeds. I produce Linux Magazine's website by running Perl scripts over an XHTML repository. I've helped develop a service -- O'Reilly's Safari -- that stores content as XML, transforms it to HTML by way of XSLT, and performs its business logic using XML-RPC.
There's nothing cutting-edge about any of this. It's just a matter of applying useful tools to basic problems. So it was a treat to lift up my nose from the grindstone and see how other folks are using XML, and where that community is heading.
To some people, I must admit, the notion that there is even such a thing as an "XML community" seems a little odd. Here's a fragment of dialogue between me and a friend who is an IT executive:
me: "I'm going to XML DevCon 2001."
her: "OK, I'll bite. What is the big deal with XML, anyway?"
me: "Well, it's all about universal representation of data."
her: "So, is that like going to the ASCII Developer's Conference?"
She makes a great point. Will XML standards development someday fade into the woodwork? Will the "XML community" dissolve back into the many constituencies from which it emerged -- publishing, software development, e-commerce? The answer to both questions is probably yes, but don't hold your breath. XML's charter puts it on a course to intersect with essentially all of the world's documents, data, and software.
BYTE.com > Tangled in the Threads > 2001 > April
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