Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

Generally I agree with Dvorak on many issues. On this I have to differ. Dvorak states that XML is "killing" the web and the simplicity the Internet offers as a "populist mechanism."

This article states several things about XML that are flat out profound misunderstandings. Dvorak obviously does not truly know what he is talking about if he favors HTML to XML. XML is far more standardized, portable and scalable than HTML. I think the truth of the matter is that many pseduo developers who know a little HTML are scared by XML and or dont want to have to learn anything new. Yet in reality XML is very very simple.

Dvorak states that XML is a "vague standard" with "no universal vocabularies" and that "nobody knows what to do about this." All of these are completely FALSE. All of these are again profoundly ridiculous and baseless statements.

XML is very standardized and the complete specification is available to anybody who wants to read it (as are the companions of XSLT, XPath and XForms which Dvorak casually mentions and implies even more disparity). XML also has a great deal of shared universal vocabularies. Things like RSS and RDF are simple examples of standardized XML vocabularies that are used extensively (even to display the very stories Dvorak himself writes). Along with that XML does allow you to define your own vocabulary and share it (the DTD) but this is a strength and offers flexibility, it is not a weakness.

Overall, I have seen some very poor and misleading articles come out of ZDnet publications, and this one is another up there near the top. Dvorak is generally thought provoking and intelligent, but obviously not much thought went into this particular article.

Dont be scared away from XML by anyone (including Internet columnists with nothing better to do). XML is a very user friendly AND very powerful technology that will greatly enhance the web and the web experience not detract from it.   XML is killing the web: Dvorak