MSXML for Java Questions

[Erik James Freed]

Hi Marko,
Actually I tried very hard not to 'advise' you, but did suggest that
you be cautious when using the datachannel parser which is the
pure java version of IE5's XML and XSL capabilities. This match between
IE5 and DC is it's best feature for those who want identical server and
browser processing. (I have not tested how identical it really is)

I do not know much about the reliability of the IE5 XML/XSL. The reliability
of the datachannel parser is very low, and is not apparently going to
improve
anytime soon. There are serious bugs in the product, as admitted by
datachannel
after having simple code fragments sent to them. It also fails the majority
of
tests in the OASIS/NIST conformance tests. They are not exactly responsive
to
these problems. The most serious bug, where they were inserting NULLs and
removing
white space where entity references were used, made it impossible for us to
use,
and we had to port off of it at the last minute under great pressure. There
only
offer of help was to *maybe* do something once I gave them $5,000. This
seemed
more like blackmail than real interest in their users. As I said earlier,
they
are within their rights to charge, but the way that they are doing it is not
confidence inspiring. Perhaps you can understand why I am not so happy with
DC :-)

Right now I am up and running on the IBM XML, Lotus XSLT/XPath environment.
So
far so good. It has full source, good licensing terms, responsive authors
and support infrastructure, so I feel like it is going to be good value when
I
have to start paying for it. It does fail alot of the conformance tests, but
they
seem to be related to a small number of faults creating a global failures.
And
with source, you can always fix them yourself.

Oracle's XML/XSLT product I have heard is good, but the licensing terms make
it
impossible to use for us. Sun's XML parser is excellent, but has no XSL/XSLT
support.

There are others, noble efforts with less resources and support. I have not
tried them
because for one reason or another, I found them not a match for our
requirements.

YMMV -more info can be found starting at the XML/XSL links found on
http://www.w3.org .

good luck,

erik

-----Original Message-----
From: Marko Zerdin [mailto:marko.zerdin at ixtlan-team.si]
Sent: Monday, September 13, 1999 7:28 AM
To: 'Erik James Freed'
Cc: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: RE: MSXML for Java Questions


Erik, thank you for your answer. I've been out of town for a few days, so I
wasn't able to respond earlier.

So, what you're saying is that you don't advise me to use IE5 XML parser.
Well, I've made quite a progress in the meantime. I've stopped using old XML
parser for java and started using COM wrapper for MSXML, that is built in
IE5. The only problem I had by now was my inability to specify encoding of
an XML document (which could be quite a problem, because I live in Slovenia
and we don't use ASCII or ISO Latin1). I've decided to postpone a problem to
some better time.

What are the bugs you were talking about (besides encoding, which generates
error for no reason known to me)? I've kept XML quite simple and it's worked
quite well by now.

What solution would you recommend? The advantage of using IE5 built-in is
huge. The system we're developing is going to a large distributed system
that will work in IE5 (client's specification). The application will run in
applets on client machines, so minimizing the transfer is on the top of
priority list.

Do you know of any XML parser for java, that is really small and works well?
If so, I'd be happy to know about it, too.

Thanks again,

Marko.

-----Original Message-----
From: Erik James Freed [mailto:ejfreed at infocanvas.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 1999 11:29 PM
To: Steven Livingstone; David Brownell
Cc: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: RE: MSXML for Java Questions


When you are attempting to create a product that has broad reach,
the politics of standards become risks, roadblocks, slowdowns,
and sometimes showstoppers for hard working innovative and vulnerable
small companies like I represent. Hence, IMHO pushing hard on vendors to not
play politics with standards and to be consistent in their support is fair.

-----Original Message-----
From: Steven Livingstone [mailto:ceo at citix.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 1999 1:21 PM
To: David Brownell; Erik James Freed
Cc: xml-dev at ic.ac.uk
Subject: Re: MSXML for Java Questions


I have recently found the best easiest way (i cost nothing) way to introduce
the company I consult for to the capabilities of XML, is through a simple,
but effective, part of their application using IE5. Reports are a successful
area to show ROI using XML.

I use as many capabilities of IE5 as no-one else is thereabouts with browser
technology. I can never really understand why people who are trying to get
technology to the masses are critisized. I'm sure there are many other XML
type apps which have non-standard parts - at least from what I have heard on
the list.

MS maybe go a bit nuts pushing technology sometimes, but then I remember
writing for the first Mosaic browser.


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