Living in an XML world
- XML
- concept of well-formedness
- clean separation of syntax from structural validation
has brought MLs themselves into a new world
- Internet/web has spawned whole new integration industry
- data(base) and object modelers now see advantages of externally-specified syntax, text-based interchange formats (instead
of roll your own all the time)
- we're now a long way from Java serialization, COM objects, CORBA integration (relatively tightly coupled application integration
frameworks), instead are doing integration based on — document exchange! (SOAP, web services)
- application formats (e.g. MS .doc) are still locked in, but below is wide open; even MS is pushing XML
- But though the “state of the art” may always include XML,
it may not always be limited to XML
- We are in a phase, a moment of opportunity
