Just a few comments: C# looks interesting but is designed by Microsoft to Lock you in - they've already stated that in the future they will be charging for the XML standards. Froma design point of view its a bit of a mish mash of old technologies glued together. If theres a design flaw in Microsoft they provide a work around. Java is meant to be multi-platform and if there is a design flaw Sun have the temerity to go back and rip up all the previous work and start again. If you get a chance check out Forte - the Java IDE its free for now and runs on Windows/Solaris/Linux and if it doesnt scare the hell out of Microsoft i'll be surprised.
Now some added bitching: As a Microsoft Technet user I was offered extra free information at the technet site. I went in and was told to fill in a Passport (all the usual lies for any market research). And on returning to the site I discovered it couldnt use the passport data and I would have to enter it all again to get my free info. Anyone know what it was? Beware trends: XML provides little more (over EDI peer to peer) than a nice way to view Data. But ask yourself why you would want to view data that is meant to be pumped straight into your business system? Tom
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tom potts wrote:
Beware trends: XML provides little more (over EDI peer to peer) than a nice way to view Data. But ask yourself why you would want to view data that is meant to be pumped straight into your business system?
I disagree, xml /can/ be used to seperate content (data) from presentation, and also allows the data to be protected from a particular technology. ie if you change database, it is possible to write a new xsl transform to insert it into your new database from vendor Y with very few problems... and of course the obvious web based transforms wuch as html/wml/vrml spring to mind ;)
Sz
Tom
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On Thu, 19 Jul, 2001 at 9:27 +0100, tom potts wrote:
Beware trends: XML provides little more (over EDI peer to peer) than a nice way to view Data.
Oh dear. Go to the back of the class!
See http://www.w3.org/XML/1999/XML-in-10-points for why you're very, very wrong.
Andrew.
On 19-Jul-01 tom potts wrote:
Just a few comments: C# looks interesting but is designed by Microsoft to Lock you in - they've already stated that in the future they will be charging for the XML standards. Froma design point of view its a bit of a mish mash of old technologies glued together. If theres a design flaw in Microsoft they provide a work around. Java is meant to be multi-platform and if there is a design flaw Sun have the temerity to go back and rip up all the previous work and start again. If you get a chance check out Forte - the Java IDE its free for now and runs on Windows/Solaris/Linux and if it doesnt scare the hell out of Microsoft i'll be surprised.
Is it better than JBuilder? (and on the subject anyone got JBuilder to work under linux?)
Now some added bitching: As a Microsoft Technet user I was offered extra free information at the technet site. I went in and was told to fill in a Passport (all the usual lies for any market research). And on returning to the site I discovered it couldnt use the passport data and I would have to enter it all again to get my free info. Anyone know what it was?
Beware trends: XML provides little more (over EDI peer to peer) than a nice way to view Data. But ask yourself why you would want to view data that is meant to be pumped straight into your business system? Tom
As a bit of an expert on EDI, (only Edifact Tradacoms rearly although I have worked with ANSI X12) I would say its a pain to parse, let alone process. Have you ever seen two documents follow an EDI standard the same way from different suppliers?
As a programmer I rearly like SAX, DOM and XSL. XSL provides an open method to transform one XML file to another, for example adding layout information to content so that you can build one application and resell it to many times as a bespoke application. ( I look forward to using Mozilla XUL or simmilar one day)
SAX makes data validation a dodle, I know that no delimiters are missing etc. I even know what byte encoding I am using for represnting forign languages.
DOM makes XML manipulation a joy in fact I have used it as a layer between EDI and the user interface (built out of internet explorer).
The main difference bettweeen EDI and XMl as I see it is the difference between writing man pages in text based troff files in a text editor and writing man pages in text based troff files when they have been gzipped in a text editor.
This beeing said if anyones got any EDI work going or any thing else I have an interview on Monday but otherwise happy to work on Linux or Windows Freelance.
Owen
On Thu, Jul 19, 2001 at 09:27:43AM +0100, tom potts wrote:
C# looks interesting but is designed by Microsoft to Lock you in
[snip]
Java is meant to be multi-platform and if there is a design flaw Sun have the temerity to go back and rip up all the previous work and start again.
FWIW, I am very much of the opinion that Java is going to die as a web language *really soon*. MS announced ages ago that they were dropping Java support (after their "problems" with Sun). The result of this is that Joe Bloggs Windows User will have to go out of their way to get a Java plugin for their web browser, which they just won't bother with.
Shame really, Java's a nice language, I'm just not sure I like the libraries. It seems to be getting a new lease of life in the embedded world at the moment.
Toby Jaffey wrote:
FWIW, I am very much of the opinion that Java is going to die as a web language *really soon*. MS announced ages ago that they were dropping Java support (after their "problems" with Sun). The result of this is that Joe Bloggs Windows User will have to go out of their way to get a Java plugin for their web browser, which they just won't bother with.
that depends a lot on your view point, from a client perspective (ie web browser), they you may be right (but I wouldn't like to put money on it). But from a backend web/server point of view then there are lots of server side Java developments in larger corporations which won't disapear anytime soon.
Sz
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