Atomic Foo

Student: Master Foo? What should we be monitoring to keep track of what is really going on, on the web. You know, the kind of stuff that just sort of creeps up on the world and BAM! a major new trend is born?

Master Foo: SOAP bubbles are easily made and pretty to look at in the morning sun. But bubbles burst, leaving ATOMs in their wake. Remember that a 'feed' is not just a news publication mechanism. With focused thought and calm mind, it can be the river through which all semantics, flow.

A Stratigraphy of Precambrian Web Space

"In the unimaginably distant future, a digital paleontologist
specializing in the history of the Web will write a research grant
application to the Galactic Federation..." --
A stratigraphy of Precambrian Web space.

XML Schema - If you won't listen to me, listen to them

From time to time I tell people that there are all sorts of interoperability problems and complexities lurking in W3C XML Schema for the unwary.

Sadly, the allure of the GUI tools and the "support" of the big vendors makes the argument difficult to make. Add the fact that a lot of people jumping into XML Schema use have little background in XML and thus tend not to understand the space well enough to even understand the expresssion of the problems, never mind the problems.

Anyway, it drives me nut becuase the problems are very, very real.

For those who need to hear it from the big names before they will believe it, I give you ACORD, BEA, BT, HL7, IBM, Microsoft, SAP, Sun.