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On 4/16/12 3:22 PM, Rushforth, Peter wrote: > Hi Liam, > >> The goal was to put SGML on the Web. It was difficult to use SGML >> on the Web at the time. > > XML on the web is difficult, so I would say XML has fallen short of > this goal in at least one respect: it's not a hypermedia format. > You don't have to get 100% on the exam to be a success, so I'm not > saying XML is a failure, but there's room for improvement. You're being kind. XML failed in its original mission, and its original set of markup, style, and linking didn't work out. XML failed. It failed in the spectacular way that led to all kinds of other successes. It didn't change the Web the way it planned, but it made people reevaluate practically everything they were doing. After a few missteps into RPC, XML made REST (and now RESTful hypermedia, though rarely XLinked) plausible at a time when people couldn't imagine how something so simple-minded might work. After a few battles with relational database purists, XML made it clear that more chaotic structures had a place in data interchange and I suspect freed things up enough for the NoSQL movement to find traction. In its document homeland, XML's simplifications made it easier for markup-based toolchains to thrive and grow, enabling ever more content to be processed more flexibly. The early XML folks may have found HTML to be not what they wanted, and seriously lacking in many respects, and the people driving the HTML conversation today return the disdain. XLink and XPointer have statistically insignificant user bases, so clearly something misfired. What a misfire! Thanks, -- Simon St.Laurent http://simonstl.com/
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