The 12 Days of XML Christmas
by Leigh Dodds
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Pages: 1, 2
Nine XML Conferences
The other great thing about the XML industry is that there are so many conferences, meaning you can soon accumulate a healthy balance of frequent-flier points.
There have been a number of notable conferences this year, including
- XMLDevCon 2000,
- XML 2000,
- XML One,
- XML World,
- Extreme Markup,
- XML Europe 2000,
- XTech 2000,
- Semantic Web Technologies,
- WWW9.
As always, community meetings have been a big feature at all conferences, giving chance for developers to finally meet face to face.
Topic Maps had a significant presence at many of these conferences. Rumor has it that many of the conferences will be renamed to reflect this: Topic Maps 2001, Extreme Topics, Topic World, and so on.
Eight Recent Recommendations
As well as the raft of Candidate Recommendations, this year saw the release of a number of W3C Recommendations. The bulk of these were the five DOM Level 2 specifications which reflects the decision to modularize the increasingly bulky DOM API into manageable chunks.
Notably the XML 1.0 specification was updated to include errata and clarifications which have been collected since the specification was originally produced in 1998.
The XHTML 1.0 specification seems to be languishing as few web developers are rushing to adopt the standard (see "Gentrifying the Web").
Seven Mozilla Milestones
Including the release of the Netscape 6 beta, there were seven milestones in the development of Mozilla. Developed as a web browser, but branded by many as an application platform, Mozilla ties together a number of XML technologies, moving us closer to the extensible XML browser developers have been discussing for some time.
As well as strong support for CSS, Mozilla includes an SVG module, an XSLT transformation component (TransforMiix), and integrated support for RDF. The latter allows the browser to properly exploit RDF. Among the most interesting innovations in Mozilla is XUL, an XML language for building user interfaces. The ability to construct interface components in this way, and populate them from RDF sources, makes Mozilla stand out from its elder sibling Netscape and its rival Internet Explorer.
Six Apache Projects
It's been a good year for the Apache XML project. Since its inception late last year the organization has expanded to feature six major projects: Xerces, Xalan, FOP, Cocoon, SOAP and Batik. Batik is a notable new arrival that adds an SVG toolkit to the Apache arsenal.
All of the projects appear to be progressing well, although some refactoring of Cocoon and Xalan has taken place to mitigate performance problems. The unique combination of code and developers from IBM, Sun, and open source groups has presented some interesting challenges. Apache appears to be further cementing its position as neutral territory between many of the big commercial players, as well as a provider of quality software.
Five U-R-Is
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) were probably the most hotly debated issue of this year. The scene was set after a W3C leak suggested that internal disputes were holding up progress on several specifications. Responding to this leak, W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee set up the public xml-uri mailing list to discuss the issues. XML developers around the world promptly disappeared beneath the weight of 1700 messages posted to the list during May and June.
The initial cause of the debate was the use of relative URIs within namespace identifiers. Disagreements revolved around whether this was legal and, if not, how to properly deprecate their use. The debate soon spread to include namespaces and URIs in general: both fundamental underpinnings for XML and Internet technologies.
The final result was that relative URIs were deprecated within namespace identifiers. Many of the other issues were not adequately addressed and are likely to cause debate for some time to come. This was demonstrated recently when the issue of naming and identifying XML resources resurfaced on XML-DEV.
Four Corporate Heavies
IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, and Sun all jumped firmly onto the XML bandwagon this year, and they promptly squabbled about who invented which bits, and who should take the reins. The usual story.
That aside, all four corporations have made significant contributions to the XML process in one way or another. IBM has lead the way with its commitment to open source development, having donated several technologies to Apache, and made others available through its alphaWorks site. Sun has adopted XML as an extension to the Java platform and has produced some interesting innovations such as its XSLT translets demonstration. Oracle demonstrated the ease with which databases and XML can be integrated with its XSQL technology, as well as providing its own XML toolkit. Microsoft, having contributed to the development of SOAP, has adopted it as a core component in its future .NET platform, focusing on the provision and development of XML-based web services.
The Deviant was lucky enough to attend a vendor panel at XML Europe at which representatives of Microsoft, IBM, and Sun discussed their commitment to XML standards.
Two, No, Three Schema Specs
The wrangling over the W3C XML Schema specifications that took place on XML-DEV last year continued into February. The Deviant reported on the debate that covered the proliferation of alternative projects and the complexity of the specification and syntax; see "Spotlight on Schemas" for a round-up of comments.
The Schema Working Group responded by publishing a third specification, the XML Schema Primer. It provides an introduction to the features covered in the two main specifications. This was followed up in May with the announcement of an open source schema validator during the Last Call period.
XML-DEV returned to the topic of Schema complexity in July, prompted by discussions during the Last Call period. As the year has progressed additional tutorial material and tools have appeared, and XML-DEV has moved on to discussing the best practices associated with XML Schemas, rather than debating its shortcomings.
While support for W3C XML Schemas is definitely growing, it still isn't a one horse race (and is unlikely to ever be). Alternatives such as RELAX and Schematron are also gaining ground: RELAX has been submitted as an ISO standard, and Schematron now has its own SourceForge project and interest group.
Two Metadata Projects
Like XML Schemas, RDF is another specification that's come in from the cold -- one of two metadata projects that made good progress this year. The other is Topic Maps; although, to stretch a metaphor, Topic Maps didn't so much come in from the cold as banged on the windows and rattled the door demanding to be let in!
The RDF Interest group was particularly active this year, having debated the complexity of the RDF syntax and potential replacements (see "Instant RDF?"). It also gave some thought toward improving the description of the RDF data model, separate from its syntax (see "Super Model"). A whole array of RDF-related tools have appeared, including parsers, data converters and extractors, databases and query languages (see the xmlhack RDF category for pointers).
The prospects of a Semantic Web were given additional attention, with several attempts to describe its facilities, and lay out a road map for its development (see "Primed for the Semantic Web").
As well as presenting at every conceivable XML conference, the Topic Map community didn't let the grass grow under its feet, having recently produced their core deliverables. One promising aspect is the potential for convergence. Members of both activities have agreed to attend teleconferences to discuss this potential. The first of these has already taken place, and reports suggest that there is support on both sides for convergence.
One Underlying Syntax
XML is the foundation upon which all these efforts are constructed. It's fitting that we end a review of the year with XML itself. The Deviant has reported previously on concerns over the growing number of XML related standards with which developers must now grapple (see "XML Reduced"). The XML subset debate, which began a year ago and lead to the formation of SML-DEV, still crops up from time to time. Would an XML subset be useful or dangerous? The Deviant summarized the issues in "Profiling and Parsers".
XML is (part of) the foundation for this year's software engineering revolution, and XML-DEV isn't shy about giving it a kick once in a while to make sure it's still stable. The Deviant is looking forward to what the new year will bring. I hope you have a good holiday!
