Len,

are you suggesting that we go back to CORBA? xml-dev feels like
chewing gum sometimes.

We like XML on the wire because we can read it and because, provided
you use XML Schema well and put effort into modelling, you see a
representation of your business model on the wire.

It's unfashionable here to defend XML and XML Schema... but I will.
Business analysts who look at a UML representation, coders who
translate the XSLT stuff, testers who pull messages off the wire,
support staff who pull messages off the exception queue, all see
a shared model. When they say "the adjusted date is wrong" they all
understand each other, and can talk to each other without hours of
reverse engineering and analysis.

I deal in EAI and I'll have XML for messaging any day, thanks. As for
the universities.. most of them don't see it as their job to come up
with Yet Another Infrastructure Standard. They are looking at next
generation mobile middleware and other hard problems.

A simpler XML would of course be appreciated... with the usual
requests around entities, namespaces and processing instructions.

Christian

> It is interesting that articles about XML messaging discuss the 
> advantages of messaging thoroughly but when the question of 
> 'why XML' comes up, the answers are reduced to 'because it 
> is there'.  In some articles, the problems of XML verbosity 
> and other nits are elaborated, but at the end, the same 
> answer 'because it is there' or 'there are no attractive 
> alternatives' are given.  Laziness or just momentum?

> While I don't expect an industry with so much invested in 
> XML to do this, I am surprised that universities and other 
> research labs are not working on that side of the problem. 
> Perhaps they are but aren't saying much about it.

> Indeed, when a binary XML as an alternative is proposed and 
> solutions are documented, the WG is asked to jump through 
> hoops not asked of any other working group.

> That kind of institutional resistance to innovation is 
> strikingly strange.   That XML will be replaced eventually 
> is almost certain given it's inefficiencies for this 
> particular application.  While that time has not come, it is 
> a provocative thought experiment to speculate on the shape 
> and characteristics of its successor.

> o  A simpler XML?

> o  A smarter XML?

> o  Binary XML

> All known and there have been attempts.

> o  Objects

> The third is what some were after before the web.  
> Why not send compiled objects?  (I know 
> some of these reasons but from time to time, it is useful to 
> start from a fresh perspective.)

> len

> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> The xml-dev list is sponsored by XML.org <http://www.xml.org>, an
> initiative of OASIS <http://www.oasis-open.org>

> The list archives are at http://lists.xml.org/archives/xml-dev/

> To subscribe or unsubscribe from this list use the subscription
> manager: <http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage/index.php>