Why XML Hasn't Cured Our Ills or Saved the World

After lunch and a little bit of work-related email, I went to Randy Ray's Why XML Hasn't Cured Our Ills or Saved the World (slides).

The talk centered around five things Ray thinks we do wrong with XML:

1. People are too quick to use XML. You have to aks yourself if it's really necessary. Is it just for buzzword-compliance?
   • If there is no reason other than the fact that there are XML parsers, then there probably is a simpler solution
   • If only a single consumer, there may be a more economical solution.
2. People are too slow to use XML.
   • Plan ahead for more than one customer of data?
   • If another part of the system is already using XML for a more "legitimate" task, why not use XML for other things, too? (i.e. configuration data)
   • It isn't always an extra cost. If the data format (and therefore the parser) would be sufficiently complex, maybe using an XML parser would be easier?
3. Lack of cooperation or sharing.
   • Not often due to malice, perhaps lack of central authority. Who moderates DTD repositories? Registries on xml.com and xml.org contain outdataed information, and UDDI is too business-centric.
   • Example: difficult to find schema for recipies. Had to wade through 3 pages of Google results to eventually find RecipeML
   • Intellectual Property issues. For example, Microsoft hasn't openened up the XML formats for Office 2003. Compare to open formats like DocBook
4. Misunderstanding the application of XML
   • XML is the "NetPBM" of generic data. (NetPBM broke new ground in image file format transformations by reducing an N * M problem to N + M).
   • People think that XML is only for "document" data.
5. People want to make XML hard.
   • Tough topics make money. How can businesses sell books/tools/software/training/services when customers think that XML is "easy"? Vested interest in making it complicated.

In conclusion, Ray mused that no one technology is (yet) a universal solution and XML is no different when it comes data formats. His charge to the audience: just think about XML before using (or not using) it. Self-described experts don't necessarily have all the answers.