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XML and Web Services In The News - Friday 09 August 2002 Microsoft, IBM, BEA to unleash trio of Web services specs INDUSTRY HEAVYWEIGHTS MICROSOFT, IBM, and BEA Systems on Monday will unleash a trio of proposed Web services standards that address several unmet needs of the nascent services-oriented application model, according to sources. "Does XML Suck?" Revisited XML-bashing seems to have become a semi-popular pastime of late... of the many critiques I've come across, this presentation is one of the best. Here are a few hopefully reasonable comments addressing the whole anti-XML sentiment that's floating around and this critique in particular. Up front... I'm not particularly an XML advocate; I've been involved in none of the XML specifications or working groups. However, while I share some of the same feelings that somehow XML is rather "grotty," I've developed what I hope is a reasonable position on the matter. WDSc Helps Simplify Web Services Why is everyone so excited about Web services? Because many view Web services as the latest answer to the age-old problem of distributed computing in the age of B2B commerce. While it can address the connection challenge of distributed heterogeneous systems, a great solution usually isn't enough. That's the reason many large corporations including IBM, Sun* Microsystems and Microsoft* Corp., are working toward universal standards. IBM Asks: Are You eXperienced? While OASIS works on the Web Services for Interactive Applications (WSIA) specification, IBM has gone ahead and released an early version of a Software Development Kit (SDK) for its Web Services eXperience Language (WSXL), which will eventually be a component of WSIA. A SOAP syntax breaker It's possible to explain Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) communication principles using existing Web technologies like JavaScript, HTML forms, and Perl CGI. The obvious drawback to this approach is that SOAP-like messages don't have the proper SOAP syntax-it 's a nonstandard solution. XML syntax is the correct syntax for SOAP messages. Concentrate on the Core Technologies Enterprise IT architects who want to draw their own technology road map tend to avoid tight coupling to any framework. They're learning the Web services technologies of XML for content representation; SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) for the exchange of requests and responses; and UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) for the disclosure and discovery of capabilities. UML For W3C XML Schema Design Even with the clear advantages it offers over the fast-receding DTD grammar, W3C XML Schema (WXS) cannot be praised for its concision. Indeed, in discussions of XML vocabulary design, the DTD notation is often thrown up on a whiteboard solely for its ability to quickly and completely communicate an idea; the corresponding WXS notation would be laughably awkward, even when WXS will be the implementation language. Thus, UML, a graphical design notation, is all the more attractive for WXS design. How to Model a Bishop Way back in the Thirties, the linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf spent some time investigating the language of the Hopi Indians in Arizona. Hopi is a very interesting language that does not have a mechanism for distinguishing past, present, and future. This fascinated Whorf, who was interested in the degree to which the languages we speak affect the way we view the world. XFrames Application for Composing Documents to Replace HTML Frames An initial public working draft specification for XFrames has been released by the W3C HTML Working Group. 'XFrames' is an XML application which addresses the usability, search, and security problems associated with HTML frames. The content of a frameset is now made visible by its URI. A 'frames' element forms the container for the composed document, and a collection of frames in an XFrames document constitutes a frameset. |
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