Clemens Vasters writes;
I am sorry to say that, but if today you still believe and insist that XML is just another data format, the train may already have left the station for you.
Well, then I guess my train is long gone. Ouch. Sorry Clemens, but
XML is just a data format. Now, good data formats like XML are
nothing to sneeze at, and I’m glad we have it, just like I’m glad we
have/had ASCII. But for heaven’s sake, it’s just syntax, a
context free
grammar.
He also stated;
One of the core messages of my talk is that the XML InfoSet is the focus of integration.
IMO, this is like saying C structs are the focus of integration. Ok, so
you and I agree on what one is, and perhaps even how its represented. Now
what? How do we integrate? We can’t, at least with just that shared knowledge.
If we also shared a model for how to identify, exchange, and manipulate them,
then that could form a focus for integration. Which is, of course, akin
to what REST tries to do around a more general abstraction called a resource.
ERH writes (grr, no permalinks);
It’s interesting that the Web Services community has managed to
alienate three different communities for three different reasons that all
derive from not understanding or accepting
the basic principles of the technologies they’re building on.
They’re either geniuses or idiots. My money’s on idiots, but time will tell.
He’s certainly right in the first part, that these groups have been
alienated; “XML” because of the subsetting and arguably the suitability
for the task, “Security” because of tunneling, and “Web/HTTP” because it
has nothing to do with how the Web works and generated its value in the
first place.
But the “idiots” comment is totally out of line. People have suggested
in the past that I’ve suggested they are idiots during my evangelizing of a
REST based approach to Web services, which really hurts, though
it’s certainly understandable; nobody likes to be told that they don’t understand
something. But that’s all that’s going on here; they don’t currently
understand. It’s absolutely not a statement about anybody’s capacity, or
lack thereof, to learn.
I also wouldn’t call anybody an idiot who was proceeding based on their
best current understanding of how distributed systems are built, when that
understanding is built from years of hard-learned experience. Unfortunately,
practically every Web services proponent I know, gathered their experience
in a LAN environment, which is a very different place than the Internet,
requiring very different solutions. I’d just call them people who need to
broaden their horizons.
So please folks, try to keep it civil. Comments such as this one
only serve to alienate, which is the last thing we need.