A milestone in XML

[Didier PH Martin]

Hi Dave,

Hummmm, I understand that you have a very subjective view of it. Its OK, we
can have subjective views as long as we don't state that they are objective
:-)

My own subjective opinion. Don't expect competing species to respect a
common standard especially if a would be standard has been brought by the
competitor. It just gives a clue that XML don't resolve the unity of
languages. Contrary to that it encourage diversity and everybody can invent
its own language. This is why, now just for channel or topic handling you
have (just a few of what's out there)
- CDF
- RSS
- RDF
- topic maps

In fact, what's marvelous about XML is that now each one can invent its own
HTML :-) or its own meta data language.

Seriously speaking, RSS is popular in the Netscape ecosystem and CDF in the
Microsoft ecosystem. Which one is better? Its a question of: in which
ecosystem you are. Never expect a Netscape specie to tell you that CDF is
good and do not expect a Microsoft specie to tell you that RSS is good. Only
some rare species living in both ecosystems can tell you that both do the
job and in fact are about the same as long as you have the right interpreter
to decode the language. And that the main perceive quality is dependant on
the interpreter quality and how data is presented. And even o this subject,
taste differ. And this is good. Its only a matter of ecosystem, taste and
often a question of religion :-)

My own religion tell me that I cannot use CDF or RSS because big money is
reincarnated into these products :-)))) just kidding :-)))

regards
Didier PH Martin
mailto:martind at netfolder.com
http://www.netfolder.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-xml-dev at ic.ac.uk [mailto:owner-xml-dev at ic.ac.uk]On Behalf Of
Dave Winer
Sent: Saturday, May 15, 1999 10:04 AM
To: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: RE: A milestone in XML


I haven't answered this question because I don't know the answer. Who knows
how anyone else thinks? Especially a big corporation that's just been
acquired by an even bigger corporation? Anyway, from my POV, CDF is a dead
horse. We did some work with it when it first came out, but it seemed
fairly useless and never went anywhere that I could see. Beyond that, I
have not got a clue what CDF was supposed to do that anyone wanted. RSS on
the other hand is quite useful, and lots of people are getting on the RSS
train, so of course we supported it enthusiastically. That's the big
picture from where I sit. Dave


At 01:36 AM 5/14/99 , Matthew Sergeant (EML) wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Jeffrey Ricker [SMTP:ricker at xmls.com]
> >
> > Dave,
> > Why did Netscape feel it necessary to invent RSS rather than use CDF as
> > Microsoft, DataChannel, PointCast, etc. do?
> >
> >
>         Perhaps because CDF isn't XML?
>
>         http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/delivery/channel/cdf1/cdf1.asp
>         http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/delivery/cdf/reference/xml.asp
>
>         Matt.
>
>
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