The Road So Far...and the Road Ahead

Jan. 3, 2003 12:00 AM

One of the key reasons behind the explosive growth of the Web is the simplicity and ease of use of the underlying standards - TCP/IP, HTTP, and HTML. Experts and critics have often argued about what's wrong with HTML and HTTP and why we need IPv6 et al. For instance, with the advent of XHTML, we are now realizing why HTML should have probably been XML-ized from Day 1; similarly, we criticize the fact that HTTP is stateless. However, the ubiquity of these standards has easily surpassed their technological imperfections.

Enter XML, and the definition of ubiquity changes altogether; what started as a simple markup language for information dissemination is now generalized as a generic application and service delivery platform for any kind of device.

Where have we seen the effectiveness of XML, and in what areas do we feel that XML has a way to go, either in adoption or in inception? Areas where XML has been effective include:

Core DOM/SAX APIs for XML: These have undergone significant release cycles and have become quite stable for processing and generation of XML.

Data transformation and processing: XSLT has already replaced a number of proprietary mapping interfaces (watch for XML Query here).

Wireless applications: We saw an initial growth of standards, particularly WAP, that used XML but deviated from the world of HTML-based Web applications. We all believed that we had to have two separate presentation markups: HTML for Web and WAP for wireless (our only savior being XSLT). Reason intervened and we got XHTML into the making, and we realized that wireless/Web application development should use XHTML Basic as the core markup language.

Core Web services: Even though analysts believe that Web services isn't yet prime time, we've seen a rise in use of core infrastructure Web services standards such as SOAP and WSDL. However, I believe we're still far from reaching the automated nirvana that UDDI-based service lookup and binding will provide (watch for standardization of Web services business process orchestration here).

Industry vocabularies: Some argue that the growth in the number of industry vocabularies using XML has become too explosive. This may be true, but it's been shown that where serious groups of companies have collaborated, standards have materialized and become critical to that industry. Take CIDX (Chem XML) for instance. It has created a definitive space for itself in the chemical industry. Where we have lacked is in areas that require cross-industry definition of business process templates and documents (watch for developments around ebXML, OAGIS), where EDI is strong with a huge user base.

Some of the areas in which I believe XML still has journey ahead include:

XML Schemas: I mention XML Schemas here because even though XML Schemas have been available as a W3C Recommendation for some time, we have yet to see widespread development around them. In my consulting with technology clients, I see that a number of developers have still a way to go before they migrate their loose DTDs into strict schemas. This is probably related to the complexity of the schema specifications and also the base education required around them.

Speech and/or multimodal applications: We've seen initial developments around VoiceXML, SALT, XHTML+Voice, and CCXML, and I believe there is consolidation and further standards development that can standardize the way we develop interactive, natural language-based speech applications.

XForms, XHTML: We love XML's ease of use but hate the loose HTML code that is floating around in the majority of Web sites and applications. XHTML goes one step further to XML-ize the basic HTML code itself, requiring significant changes to the existing code and coding style. The new XForms specification is an interesting addition to this mix, providing a strong next-generation forms solution for device-independent Web applications.

Although we've faced some challenges (for example, the development of XML Schemas), the road so far has been quite smooth for XML. Looking at some of the key issues that we'll have to tackle going forward - XML Query, common business documents semantics, Web services orchestration, and so on - we're likely to hit some bumps in the middle.

As the new editor-in-chief of XML-Journal, I plan a strong focus on technology and real-world applications, a combination that I believe can be very effective in navigating XML's exciting journey.

Published Jan. 3, 2003— Reads 8,571
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media. All Rights Reserved.

About Hitesh Seth
Hitesh Seth is chief technology officer of ikigo, Inc., a provider of XML-based web-services monitoring and management software. A freelance writer and well-known speaker, he regularly writes for technology publications on VoiceXML, Web Services, J2EE and Microsoft .NET, Wireless Computing & Enterprise/B2B Integration. He is the conference chair for VoiceXML Planet Conference & Expo.

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