Ten Predictions for XML in 2007

An anonymous reader writes "2007 is shaping up to be the most exciting year since the community drove off the XML highway into the Web services swamp half a decade ago. XQuery, Atom, Atom Publishing Protocol (APP), XProc, and GRRDL are all promising new power. Some slightly older technologies like XForms and XSLT are having new life breathed into them. 2007 will be a very good year to work with XML."

Re:How about reasons not to use XML?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

That's why I gave up using bitmap images. Looking at the picture, dividing it into a grid of units (I call them pixels, short for picture elements - cute, eh?), estimating the RGB values, converting them to hex and keying them in just got to be too much effort.

Buzzwords

[Wiseman1024]

XML allows you to discover new business opportunities, maximize your profits, convert visitors into customers, cut development times and optimize cash flows allowing your enterprise to scale to your needs with Web 2.0 AJAX-based solutions built on web services in a SOA. By adhering to best-practice design patterns on XML, your applications can interact with each oth...

(because XML is a universal language and networks did not allow you to do this already.)

The trend is now to build XML (*fap*fap*fap*), then use XSL stylesheets (*fap*fap*fap*) which are XML (*fap*fap*fap*) to process it with XSLT (*fap*fap*fap*) and generate XHTML (*fap*fap*fap*), which is XML (*fap*fap*fap*). For applications to communicate, we development time (and execution time) producing XML (typically with terribly ugly APIs such as *ugh* DOM), then parsing it from the other end.

I may as well suggest a new generation of enterprise Web 3.0 scalable software solutions! Universal XML! By using universal XML, you can make more money and your business will grow and you will have more business business business! It works like this:

Legacy Web 2.0:
<p class="demo">example</p>

Web 3.0 best practices:
<element>
        <name>p</name>
        <attributes>
                <class>
                        <value>demo</value>
                </class>
        </attributes>
        <text>
                example
        </text>
</element>

Start using Web 3.0 today!

Re:XML is broken

[mrchaotica]

To quote Phillip J. Eby: "Some people, when confronted with a problem, think 'I know, I'll use XML.' Now they have two problems."

And I have a t-shirt that says (in the style of those motivational posters) "Abstraction: because the first step in solving any problem is always to create more problems." So, does that mean abstraction is bad, too?

You need a computer to use XML

[SimHacker]

That is right, it's extremely difficult to use XML unless you have a tool, like a computer. Technically, you can use XML with a pencil and paper, but it's difficult, and a pencil is a tool too. You can also write XML in the sand with a stick, but sticks are also tools. Another thing you can do is think about XML with your brain, but your brain is also a tool. So yes, you do have to use tools in order to use XML, and if you don't have any tools like brains or sticks or pencils or computers, then no, you should not be using XML.

-Don