• From: James Fuller <james.fuller.2007@g...>
• To: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2010 18:01:02 +0100

I think its healthy to regularly review assumptions ... this is
especially apt in the world of computing where a single advance in
hardware can enable unthinkable 'efficiencies' (or inefficiencies,
depends where you are standing) rendering all previous analysis moot.

The XML crowd is a lot more introspective then most and I would be
willing to bet a large % would move to something 'better' e.g. a world
without angle brackets in a heartbeat *if* it was actually better; it
should be noted that XML has in existence today the full tooling to
make this leap possible.

The XML epoch (e.g. the past decade) has enabled all the choice we
have now and we should view change/competition as a good (if not
exciting) thing. I also think its relevant that there are large groups
of developers who have no memory of pre-XML (or things like browser
wars), these are fresh in my memory but how do we relate these stories
to younger developers without sounding (and being), well ...
irrelevant?

But lets get back to the point; data is growing by magnitudes on all
measures ... the type of data growing fastest is unstructured/semi
structured data so there is no 'looking back' with respect to
shoveling all this stuff into relational databases, so where is all
this data going to go ?

I will glibly say that it doesn't matter what we say to ourselves,
clients or to the perceived 'competition'; this increase in
semi/unstructured data will dictate adoption .... JSON or XML does not
completely solves the whole problem, thus it follows that both
approaches will experience greater adoption and new approaches will
emerge.

Will the next data 'epoch' be XML 2.0 or JSON 2.0 or some intersection
of the two, perhaps something completely different ?

There are some interesting problems when it comes to storing,
persisting, sending, marshaling, checking, fixing, breaking,
composing, validating and doing what ever else one may do with data,
but what I find the most interesting thing about data is what
questions can be asked and answered from it ... so maybe this is where
semweb is taking a higher road.

Very interesting thread and <plug>with JSON and XML 'love in' as a
topic at XML Prague 2011 why not submit a paper/thought or attend and
continue the debate/discussion ?  http://www.xmlprague.cz
</plug>

Jim Fuller

• References:
  • XML as salvage yard (was RE: James Clark: XML versus the Web)
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>