A milestone in XML

[Jeffrey Ricker]

Sorry for the delay in response. Short vacation with the family.

First things first: Of course CDF is XML. It is one of the very first uses
of XML. 

You would be hard pressed to say I am in the Microsoft ecosystem, but lets
give credit where its due. Yes, channels were overhyped and didn't go
anywhere. (I personally believe the same fate awaits portals.) 

But look at the underlying purpose and capability of a CDF file. I
designates a group of related files, describes them and tells you if and
when they change. Now that's practical and it works. 

Are you going to tell me CDF is complicated? If you want complicated, look
at ICE! But then realize that ICE is industrial strength content
syndication, not intended for the pedestrian web page hacker.

Climb under the hood of PointCast some time. It is very simple, make that
practical, technology. CDF didn't meet all their needs, but they didn't
throw the baby out with the bathwater. They didn't reinvent anything. They
simply extended it. Isn't that what we did with HTML for the past few years? 

PS. Why do you call it a milestone, anyway?

At 07:03 AM 5/15/99 -0700, Dave Winer wrote:
>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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