Tuesday, March 19, 2024

April 12, 1999 — Newsletter #23

GOODIES TO GO! ™
April 12, 1999 — Newsletter #23
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Please visit http://www.htmlgoodies.com
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Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors…


Not to gloat, but your old buddy Joe was pretty close to
being on the mark about this Melissa thing. It turned out to
be Dave Smith from Trenton, New Jersey. I said the virus was
named after a woman… it was. I also said the creator of
the virus did it just to see if he could… he did. I’m sure
in some circles, he’s a hero. If nothing else he succeeded
in making virus companies a whole bunch of money.


Did you hear… the inventor of the WWW, Tim Berners-Lee
(believe it or not, it isn’t Al Gore), is upset at what has
been done with his creation? He’s specifically upset about
people changing URLs and not updating pages so that 404
errors are rampant, and the “poor methods” (his words) used
by search engines. Berners-Lee claims that we are only
halfway through the creation of the Net but that “[the] Web
is still too complex, too inefficient, and not private
enough.”


Now onto the topic for this week…

Can you get a read on this XML (Extensible Markup Language)
thing? I’m having a heck of a time. Do we like it or don’t
we?


One day it looks like we’re all ready to call it friend, and
the next I can’t find anyone who will acknowledge it exists.
It seems now like we’re in the “friend” wave.


Sun Microsystems has said they will create a platform so
that XML can be incorporated into their Java language. They
want to allow developers to combine the two languages to
make better applications.


IBM has proclaimed they will now offer something called
SpeechML, which is based on XML, in order to allow users to
speak to their computers. I speak to mine all the time: I’m
usually yelling.


But there’s also the downside…


Jason Meserve, a staff writer for Network World, seemed to
have it right on the button when he wrote that XML will
never hit the mainstream unless the Internet search engines
start playing with it (Cnn.com 3/19/99). He’s right. What’s
the point of learning this new language when you get the
exact same results as HTML yet lose hits because the search
engines fail to recognize what you’ve written as text or
code?


AltaVista has already said they will not use XML, but Lycos
and Excite claim they’re looking into it. Yahoo! didn’t
come up. My guess is that they won’t be playing XML ball,
as their search engine doesn’t really require it.


XML programmer tools are coming out, Netscape seems ready
to put XML in some business tools, and the average Joe seems
to have heard of XML. So, this can’t help but succeed, right?


I don’t know. This looks like a “pushed” technology to me.
Remember when “push” and “pull” were the Web buzz-words
a year ago? You could either push or pull information. When
students asked me what the difference between the terms was
I answered that “pushed” information was stuff you didn’t
want.


Will XML hit it big or remain at the VRML level, a nice
programming language that you only know if you’re really
into the Web.


If it does hit, it’ll have to hit with those who program
for a living. Those are the people who will see XML’s
inherent value to page creation. HTML simply allows you
to mark up; XML allows you to create the items that mark
things up. I’ve played with it. It’s neat. It’s extremely versatile and fun, but its usefulness is similar to the way Play-Doh keeps children occupied.


The big question is, will XML hit with the Weekend Silicon
Warrior crowd? I have yet to see much evidence that it will.
For a short while, the whole world was writing to HTML
Goodies hoping to create a channel on their MSIE-formatted
site. Channels used XML. Those messages have dried up.


I think the reason is simple: It’s too much work for the
benefit. As I said earlier, why would I go to the trouble
of programming in XML when I could get the exact same look
using the much easier HTML? Plus, my HTML page is more
forgiving in terms of programming errors and is supported
by all browsers.


I read somewhere that sites are going to have to start
creating mirrors (equal sites) written in XML. That’s
so users can either see the pages in XML or in HTML,
depending on their browser. Again I ask, what is the
benefit?


I’ll grant you this: If XML does become a cornerstone of
the Web, the programming format will make searching much
more efficient and successful. Users will know exactly
what is on the page rather than having to hunt to find out.


But now we’re back to the concern that the search engines
are not tripping all over themselves to get at the language
and install it in their searches.


If the language is so great (and it really is), why not?


Lineage, pure and simple. HTML-based pages outnumber
XML-based pages thousands and thousands to one on the
Web. What’s a search engine to do, create dual searches?
That’ll slow things down a great deal. Maybe just index
the text, but then what’s the point of XML/HTML? It’s a
very rough call on the search engine’s part.


Plus the search engine has a grasp on what the public
wants. I have no doubt that if users were sending XML
by the bowl-full, Yahoo! would jump all over it, but we’re
not.


So, why haven’t we jumped all over it?


Again, benefit. I’ve already talked about XML not
presenting much more visually than HTML, but there’s
also the difficulty factor. XML is not overly hard. It’s a
little picky here and there in that all items require end
flags, and slashes have to be put in specific places, but
it’s not that rough. The difficulty is that the majority
of people don’t want to take the time to learn a new
computer language that does the same things as the
language they already know.


I’ve heard it suggested that all pages that are submitted
to search engines must be translated into XML by the
search engine as a possible solution. Right. See how long
that lasts. One person suggested he and I start a search
engine that only deals with XML pages. It’s a thought. I
wonder how it would do. I have no doubt it would be a
very high-tech series of pages.


So… do we love XML or do we love XML not? Will the
programming world embrace the language and push it upon
us or will the public (with the real say in what works
and what doesn’t) simply refuse to grasp this new language?
Sometimes I think it’s a winner and sometimes I think it’s
ready to become a footnote.


I think most people would answer that they don’t much
have an opinion. They want the ball scores, the latest news
headlines, and to be able to send e-mail. And make it fast.
Don’t care how the XML you do it. Just make it so I can
understand it.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>


And that’s that. Thanks again for reading. It makes the
writing that much more enjoyable knowing that you will
take 15 minutes out of your life to listen to me ramble
on and on….

Joe Burns, Ph.D.


And Remember: The first country that will feel the wrath of
Y2K is New Zealand. They are always the first country, in
the first time zone, to cross into a new year.

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