XML Opportunities Knocking
By Michael Floyd
Just in case the Kenneth
Starr report has in some way overshadowed the goings on over at the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C), I'm here to tell you that seXML sells. Well OK,
not just yet, but it will. Consider that Tim Bray, on XML day at the Seybold
Conference held in San Francisco this past September, essentially said that
while he didn't expect HTML to go away anytime soon, XML would eventually
replace it. With 1.5 million Web pages born daily (according to Alexa Internet),
it's easy to understand why HTML is here for a little longer. In fact, grandfathering
out HTML will likely take years.
However, the interesting story behind XML is that it will likely take hold
in areas that have little to do with the actual presentation of Web documents.
And that's where the opportunities for XML developers lie. This month, I continue
my discussion with Charles Goldfarb, the father of SGML and coauthor of The
XML Handbook (Prentice-Hall), to
find where these opportunities are.
What other kinds of applications are we likely to see over the next year
or two?
Well, that's a big list. There are a couple of dozen applications already.
I think you break them down in The XML Handbook into four categories.
One involves database.
Well first, it's hard to say what's an application versus what's a technology
or a mode of use.
