The place of XML

[Joris Gillis]

Hi all,

For some time, I've been wondering about the current place of XML and the importance of W3C. I'm only 17 and I'm still exploring the web. But during the past year, I've been totally preoccupied with XML. However, in real life, I've never met people who have ever heard of these acronyms.



When studying informatics or other computer-related courses at university, is XML a part of the course? Or is the concept of XML (or other W3C standards) not even mentioned in a footnote? Is XML something you have to discover yourself?

Are there corporations, not directly related to developing web-based applications, that recommend the use of XML to all their employees? Or is XML only used clandestinely by some rare ICT-guys?

What, do you think, is the importance of XML (and applications like SVG)? Is it revolutionary, elightening and desirable or is hot air or more of the same? Maybe I'm overestimating the importance. (I hope not)



Maybe someone can give some links to recent articles about this or post comments on this thread.
Thanks in advance.

 

[=?ISO-8859-15?Q?J=FCrgen_Kahrs?=]

When studying informatics or other computer-related courses at
university, is XML a part of the course?

No. Are there courses at University about using an editor ?

Or is the concept of XML (or
other W3C standards) not even mentioned in a footnote? Is XML something
you have to discover yourself?

XML is only a data format. Therefore it is (at best) worth
a small section in an appendix of a scientific text book.
XML is not science, it is technology.

What, do you think, is the importance of XML (and applications like
SVG)? Is it revolutionary, elightening and desirable or is hot air or
more of the same? Maybe I'm overestimating the importance. (I hope not)

SVG seems to be an irrelevant format if you are talking
about real life (I mean the Internet Explorer and Mozilla).
XML does not look revolutionary to me. Some ideologists
see it differently of course. End users will most likely
never see it directly. XML data is meant to be exchanged
between machines and _not_ presented directly to the user
of a GUI.

Watch this and follow some links:

http://xml.coverpages.org/xmlApplications.html

There are tons of dead links behind it.
During the Internet Boom everyone thought that all
data has to be exchanged with XML in the future.
DNA sequences of Genomes for examples. Look at what
has come out of it. XML today is irrelevant in the
databases of Genomic data.

Maybe someone can give some links to recent articles about this or post
comments on this thread.
Thanks in advance.

Here in Germany, the magazine iX has just published
a special edition about XML:

http://www.heise.de/ix/special/04/01/

iX is not a scientific magazine, but a magazine
mostly for developers in the Unix field. If they
publish a special edition, they obviously think
that XML is of some importance.