Hi Nuno, Ok, let's skip the polemics <g>.
I agree with your basic premise that MS endorsement of XML content editing is definitely a good thing. By the time MS arrives at the party, it has usually been going for a while already and it takes MS a while to get hip to the scene, IYKWIM. But it also sends a signal to folks hanging on the sidelines that that it is OK to go into the water. I see now which "bugs" you were referring to. I had thought your remark was aimed at my other posting that day. I apologize if either post came off as a rant. I do not consider myself an MS basher and work to avoid politics or religion in technology discussions. I was attempting tease apart some of the complex technology issues we face as CMS developers and relate some of my experience in grappling with MS products. Your point that MS is not alone in its problems is well taken. I'll spare you my war stories about J2EE. But I feel the basic issue I raised remains: beware of conflating XML editing or even Web Services with the Microsoft .NET CLR (common language runtime). I believe the state of the art of XML editing and Web Services to be much more mature and stable than the .NET CLR. Wholesale adoption of the .NET CLR poses real development and deployment risks and costs that XML and WS, by themselves, do not. Here is my rule of thumb about adopting MS technologies: use what MS uses. For example, for many basic services, MS products will still use C APIs, such as WinINet, ODBC, etc. Where these are available, they represent the safest interface to that particular service. MS XML libraries are excellent and do not use the CLR. Shoot, until recently, MS was still using Unix as bastion systems facing the Internet. MS doesn't always eat their own dogfood. MS did use a bunch of .NET UI components in VS.NET. But that product is not yet stable enough to use. According to MSDN, the next VS release is for "unmanaged C++ developers", so I am not the only one underwhelmed by this release. C++ developers have pretty much stuck with VC6 - which is a terrific product, btw. Simply the best in the business. Personally, I feel that way about Word (97/2K, haven't tried XP yet) as well. So, the 64 billion dollar question for Office 11 is this: does it still use the same COM plumbing? I.e. does it expose Office functionality "natively" to the CLR or via the COM interop layer? My guess is the latter, in which case, all is well (relatively). But if they bite the bullet and wire the CLR deeper into the product suite (as they did with VS), then expect major stability problems. Bottom line: XML Content Editing and Web Services are a GO today on many platforms. MS .NET CLR not until 2004 on Windows only. take it easy, Charles Reitzel On 22 Dec 2002 at 22:48, Nuno Lopes wrote: > Hi Charles, > > Technically speaking about XML I concur with your vision of > problems and benefits and find your questions, hints and > remarks very helpful. > > > First, by dusting off that old Kenton quote (a favorite of > > technology salesmen everywhere), are you implying that > > just because MS Word "ain't broke" is no reason _not_ to > > foist deep XML structures upon CMS users? Sorry so polemic, > > but I feel I am responding in kind. > > In your last post (that is why I answered in that way) I got the > impression that the focus was not really XML Editors and XML in > general and in terms of technology, but more of a rant about how > usually bad the first versions of Microsoft packages (DAO, VB3, COM?, > MS XML Library, .NET problems, Visual Studio .NET, VB.NET, etc), which > I can say more or less regarding software production in general (Java, > J2EE, lack of compliance, memory leaks, lack of good database drivers, > etc). But because there are some exceptions, one has to evaluate them > all carefully and that was what I was trying to say in my last post. > But your opinion (maybe I got it wrong) it seams to be inclined to > avoid Office 11, and Visual Studio .NET altogether until 2004 or later > altogether. This is may be the best course of action in business terms > from the point of view of users but not for developers IMO. > > Don't get me wrong as you I also consider that any software > is much less then perfect in the first 3 versions, but I > don't consider that avoiding the XML features of massive > software product as a Microsoft Office is a good policy when > thinking about user's and cost contention, especially when > they have ~70%-90% of the market. The reasons why is that I > consider that for good or for the bad XML as a editing format > will become mainstream due to Office (not more a set of > features made for a niche market for free or really > expensive), and this can only be good for developers and most > CMS vendors (Open Source or not). > > >Second, you do not respond to or acknowledge some of the > >difficulties in defining flexible XML schemas. > >Specifically, XSD makes it difficult to define elements as > >containers for XHTML. At best, it is a cumbersome, brute > >force task. > > Back to XML I'll let the thread roll on a wee bit longer > (buying myself some time to do other things:). I'm also > waiting for my Beta version of Office 11. > > Best regards, > Independent Consultant. -- http://cms-list.org/ trim your replies for good karma.
