Understanding the Evolution and Future of XML

1. Introduction • Unlike most standards, XML was born from a desire to simplify, nurtured with perseverance and insight. While forces conspire to complicate, obfuscate and mystify XML with an entourage of related standards, XML's inherit balance of simplicity and functionality keep it relevant. This talk will explore the conditions that combined to create a standard unique in its simplicity. Then the forces of complexity will be examined by considering the development of related XML standards. Finally the future of XML and its role in information architecture will be considered by projecting how these forces are aligned today.

2. XML Trends

3. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went on a camping trip. • After a good meal and a bottle of wine they laid down for the night, and went to sleep. • Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend. • "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see." • Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars.“ • Holmes asked: "What does that tell you?" • Watson pondered for a minute. • "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. • Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. • Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. • Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. • Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.

4. Dr. Watson • What does it tell you?" "Watson, you idiot. Someone has stolen our tent."

5. Introduction • Unlike most standards, XML was born from • desire to simplify • perseverance and insight • Forces conspire to • complicate, obfuscate and mystify • with an entourage of related standards, • XML's inherit balance of simplicity and functionality keep it relevant. • This talk will explore the conditions that combined to create a standard unique in its simplicity. • Then the forces of complexity will be examined by considering the development of related XML standards. • Finally the future of XML and its role in information architecture will be considered by projecting how these forces are aligned today.

6. Constraint Systems • Information architecture is an exercise in constraints and models. • Constraint: Boolean relationship • Model: Abstraction, resource allocation, shared understanding • Isn’t a conformance to a model also a constraint? Yes. • Schema – a model and system of constraints • Schemas • Define contracts for data that will be exchanged in the transaction • Provide application developers guidance • Guide an author in creating and editing information

7. Prior to XML ISA~00~ ~00~ ~01~0819405530010 ~01~153734900 ~000114~0927~U~00302~000160473~0~P~|. GS~PO~COMDEX~D710-850~000114~0927~161441~X~003020. ST~850~290267. BEG~00~DS~20-P1-749833~~000114. NTE~ORI~SHIP ASAP. FOB~CC~OR. DTM~002~000114. N1~ST~LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES~92~99. N3~67 WHIPPANY RD~CAHNDANG. N4~WHIPPANY~NJ~07981. I have no idea what this might mean! • EDI error rates can approach 85%. • HTML parsing requires up to 50% of the code in your favorite browser!

8. Content Closing Tag Opening Tag <tag> Content </tag> Element Markup • Simple Syntax that make it easy to separate “data” from “meta-data” • Markup includes • Elements • Attributes • Comments • Entity references • Processing instructions • CDATA sections • Document type declarations

9. Lexical Reconciliation Legacy XML XML Flat File Lexical EDI XML Understanding Data • To understand data, you must be able to • parse it • infer its context • understand how it relates to you Semantic Harmonization Schema Reconciliation Semantic Reconciliation Syntax Semantic XML Harmonized

10. Knowledge Mgmt. Information Mgmt. Data Mgmt. The Information Continuum Generating Intellectual Capital • Creating new knowledge from existing knowledge Adding Context High • Driving business processes with knowledge • Classifying documents, creating classification schemes Increasing Value • Collecting information about the quality and usefulness of the information Managing Assets • Putting information into managed locations Level of Investment Low Capture Organize Evaluate Synthesize Low High Process Complexity

11. Presentment Again, louder Reword Reduction Gesture Translate Fulfillment Guess Look Up Partial Understanding Full Understanding shared context Kann ich bitte ein Glas Wasser haben? Wuerden Sie mir bitte ein Glas Wasser reichen? Wasser bitte! WASSER!!!!!! Can I please a glass of water have?

12. Carbon-based life Intuition Experience Reasoning Logic Inductive, deductive Intent Idiom Semantics Language Roots Silicon-based Data Meta-data Process Context Associations Look-up Tables Repositories Cognition • Context Example: Crew Chief • Race Car Team leader or • Rowing Team leader

13. Disruption • Volume of transactions • Security, Reliability, Predictability • Reduced Cost of Procurement EDI Technology demand for XML eCommerce Technology demand for EDI demand for technology Z XML Technology Performance Metric • Reuse, leverage and communities • Semantics • Cost of new product deployment • One-to-one business • Security, Reliability, Predictability? • Completeness? Technology Z • Interoperability • Flexibility and Agility • Number of trading partners • Global supply chains • Reduced setup and TCO • One-to-one marketing Time Ref: Innovators Dilemma; Clayton Christensen

14. Creating XML • Unlike most standards, XML was born from • Simplify • Perseverance • Insight

15. Why XML? • XML was designed to manage documents on the web • Team included architects of HP.COM and DOCS.SUN.COM • Reuse content made for print in multiple web pages: • data sheets, white papers etc. • Present a more organized view of information • We faced significant differences in how our organizations structured information • So, the answer was to create XML to • Interchange document information between groups • Make it easy to publish content standards • Separate content from presentation • which makes it easy to build tools that reuse information

16. The design goals for XML • XML shall be straightforwardly usable over the Internet. • XML shall support a wide variety of applications. • XML shall be compatible with SGML. • It shall be easy to write programs which process XML documents. • The number of optional features in XML is to be kept to the absolute minimum, ideally zero. • XML documents should be human-legible and reasonably clear. • The XML design should be prepared quickly. • The design of XML shall be formal and concise. • XML documents shall be easy to create. • Terseness in XML markup is of minimal importance.

17. XML • XML is the eXtensible Markup Language • Evolved from ISO Standard SGML • Designed to • Add structure to Web documents • Be simple (25 pages) • XML has expanded well beyond its original goals

18. Perseverance Timeline

19. Origins of XML • 1996 November - introduced to SGML Community • 1997 March - First press articles • 1997 April (WWW6) - introduced to Web Community • 1998 February - XML 1.0 • 1999 January - XML Namespaces • 2001 May - XML Schema • 2001 October - XSL Recommendation • 2002 February - XML Digital Signatures “I didn’t actually build it, but it was based on my idea.”

20. 1991: Crossing the Chasm and Virtual Corporation published 1999: e-Everything, ad nauseum 1994: The Web carries commercial messages anywhere in the world. 2001: Crossroads -- “The P.T. Barnum Era of B2B is over.” 1975: FedEx installs the first drop box 1980s custom applications early 1990s ERP systems mid 1990s fax, phone, EDI late 1990s B2C, B2B 2000s Web Services The world around us - The Evolution of e-Commerce Web services promise to bring these all together and make networks of computers useful and ubiquitous • Silicon chips made computer ubiquitous • GUIs made using computers ubiquitous • The Web made accessing content ubiquitous • XML made understanding content ubiquitous

21. Insight • SGML Substrate (primordial soup) • All 12 of us had worked with SGML extensively • We knew the founders of SGML • We had worked together • In short, we were a community-of-practice • In development we walked through each SGML feature and asked: • Is this necessary for success?

22. Ockham's Razor It is pointless to do with more what can be done with less. According to Ockham According to Socrates No one errs intentionally. This means that whenever we do something wrong it is out of ignorance rather than evil. • …it also means that Ockham’s razor cut too thin…you needed more information to do it right.

23. Standards Development • An Example: XML Schema • Complication • Time • Convergence • Obfuscation • Priesthood • Mystify

24. Serenity • The Chair’s Credo Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the Courage to change the things I can, and the Wisdom to know the difference.

25. Validation • Validation assures the data conforms to the schema(s) constraints • XML requires documents to be well-formed • must follow the grammar to assure parsers can correctly separate data from markup • XML allows documents to be validated against: • DTD, Schemas, Others • Schemas can only express part of the semantics required for business applications. Validation done with schemas improve data quality andlower the application costs.

26. Where It Goes WrongThe Precision Example Detailed Description Of Data • Syntax • How the data is parsed into elements • Structure • Contents, order and names • Constraints • Datatypes • How many elements there can or must be • What values are valid • For example: date constraints could state that the year must an integer that is greater than 1960 and less than 2100

27. Standardizing Interoperation - Precision Standards should be constrained wherever possible • Constraints will allow • Developers to tailor their application • Improved data quality by message validation • But, constraints limit adoption and flexibility • Developers and adopters choose not to use them • Taken to the extreme, the only standard needed is… • a container for “anything”

28. XML Coordination Group XML Core errata, X-Include, Information Set XML Schema Parts 0, 1, 2, 3 XML Linking WG XML Base, Xpath, Xlink, Xpointer XML Query WG Data Model, Algebra, Language XML Namespaces XML Protocols WG XSL WG XSL, XSLT XML DSIG XML Signature, Canonical XML DOM ( Levels 1, 2, 3 ) Others XML-Encryption VoiceXML XForms WG SMIL, SVG XHTML RDF … An entourage: The W3C XML Family • More than 20 horizontal XML specifications!

29. Complication: Convergence • Convergence • Mixture of two or more communities of practice do not share sufficient background belief systems to know how to judge "necessary for success". • Fractured Communities • Lack of community coherence due to historical differences in practice or implementation • Examples • Schema: documentation, ecommerce, database • Query: hierarchy, relational • Namespaces: Java, XML, UML

30. Relational Entity Relation Model Normalization Plan BLOBs/CLOBs Queries Grievances Signers and states Declarations Hierarchical (XML) Elements, attributes Structure Constraints Complication: Convergence Now, tell me who’s proudest?

31. Complication: Data/Context/Process • Why do document and database people lack shared perspective? • Is it really the difference between hierarchal and relational views? • … Because their community-of-practice focuses on different metrics… • both think the other is a disruptive force

32. Complication: Time • Time pressure causes lack of exploration of alternatives and design clarity • Unwillingness to compromise where it is appropriate • Examples • Namespace – TBL wanted it done • XLink – after time, interest waned and new parties did not understand original goals Another common standards personality type… “Don Quixote”: An impractical idealist bent on righting incorrigible wrongs….

33. Obfuscation • Priesthood • Many standards participants attempt to create an expertise that they can then exploit • The priesthood that surrounds complicated technology is self-serving • Example • Namespaces: user community desire to make it mean more than it does, use of overly complex namespace plans “If you can’t explain it to a 5 year old, then you don’t really understand it” Cats Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut

34. Mystify • Vendors are rewarded for creating a mystique around a standard -- particularly one that may challenge their current competitive positioning. • Mystique serves multiple corporate needs: • Increase interest • Value of supporting technologies • Ability to subvert benefits of openness or functionality To combat mystique - release open source or public domain tools that implement the standard. IBM did this and MS followed for XML parsers.

35. ISA~00~ ~00~ ~01~0819405530010 BEG~00~DS~20-P1-749833~~000114. NTE~ORI~SHIP ASAP. Lexical <ShoppingCart> <ProductList> Dave’s Order</ProductList> <Part> 00000-99999</Part> </ShoppingCart> Syntactic <Order> <PL> Dave’s Order</PL> <Part> 00000-99999</Part> </Order> Semantic Free or near-free software • XML enabled reuse of core technology • Parsers • DOM, SAX, others • Processors • App servers, java, .Net • Databases • Native and Enabled • Free, or at least inexpensive: • http://www.xml.com/programming/

36. Future Projection • Vulnerabilities • Byte count, Schema, Query, Namespace • Semantics is the focus of the future…so why challenge what is working? • Future Projections • XML • Schema Validation • XML Databases and XQuery • Semantics

37. XML XML will remain the standard platform for information convergence • Enables Information Reuse • Global interchange • Machine processing • New uses for documents • Benefits of XML • Feature/Complexity balance • Enables user defined semantics and semantic processing Large Database Publishing XML DataSetSize Desktop & PDA Transactional Small Un-Structured Structured Interchangeable Partsdrove the Industrial AgeReusable Informationdrives the Information Age ©2003 Contivo. All rights reserved

38. Validation • Validation is seldom used today • Complexity: Computationally expensive • Mystify: Difficult to maintain “tight” schemas • Obfuscate: Schemas can only express part of the semantics required for business applications • Hardware Accelerators • Schema Tools Validation will be done in production with schemas improve data quality and lower the application costs.

39. XML Database and XQuery • Suffers from • Mystification - IBM & MS v. the world. • Obfuscation - pursuit ofdetail and exceptions to distraction • But time has overridden this with XQuery based tools on the low-cost track XML Databases will make a comeback.

40. Then we put meaning on the words Then we disagree Why Semantics The basic problem w/ semantics: We put words on everything What do you do now? Semantics in Business Systems; Dave McComb p 11

41. Data at the Edge New technologies do not create chaos, they expose and accelerate it. • In 1869 the transcontinental railroad enabled and accelerated the migration westward. • In the 40’s and 50’s, the interstate system enabled and accelerated migration to the suburbs. • In the 80’s and 90’s computing become less centralized • Accelerated by PCs, relational databases, SQL, the Web • Data migrated out of “glass houses” and closer to the user • Web Services, XQuery, XML • The latest technologies to help people get better control over data and processes that help them in their daily activities • and in doing so, data will migrate closer to the edge

42. Sources of Semantic Chaos • Data at the edge enables different processes for • different payment history and methods • different customers and partners • different legal jurisdictions • Data at the edge is more personalized • “Call Sally” • My cell phone knows who I mean • A centralized corporate directory does not • With personalization comes differences • with differences comes semantic chaos Don’t blame my phone.

43. Semantics • Semantics today mirrors SGML of 1988 • Complexity: description logics • Mystify: cashing in on the “semantic web” hype • Obfuscate: RDF, OWL, OWL-lite, DAML-OIL, KIF, REA, etc. • Semantic Integration • Emergent Modeling • Community of Practice Semantics will be the “next big thing”… but today’s semantic technology will seem like Model Ts.