What makes XML really exciting
Mike Hogan explains the relationship between code and marketplaces, for those who do not see it
28 May 2001, 5 pm GMT
What makes XML really exciting?
I actually wrote a white paper on this topic back in 1997 and the story really hasn't changed much, but it is now on the verge of being realized in a big way. Basically HTML, in combination with HTTP and other technologies enabled the World Wide Web to reshape the Internet into a medium for humans to interact with computers on a global basis.
Since the creation of the World Wide Web, people have dreamed and schemed about extending this from human-to-machine to machine-to-machine interaction over the Internet.
This is what XML is REALLY about. This is, as Steve Martin said in the movie "The
Jerk" XML's "special purpose". Up until now, XML has been used largely as a better HTML. Because it provides some additional information, versus HTML, it is good for passing data between applications. For example eCatalogs are a good use of XML. But, this is using XML as a powerful language for building flexible file formats. This is not XML's special purpose.
When can we expect to see XML used for machine-to-machine
integration?
WebMethods was founded a few years back on a product that enabled web automation to be built into applications as methods, hence the name webMethods.
However, this tool, based on their Web Interface Definition Layer (WIDL), was completely driven by the consumer or browser of the web.
In other words, the web sites that were being automated knew nothing about it. This had its limitations. For example, design changes could break the consuming application because the input/output fields moved.
Now there is a new technology that is poised to exploit XML's special purpose and in the process reshape the Internet as dramatically as the World Wide Web did with HTML and HTTP. This technology is comprised of XML, XML Protocol (aka "the protocol formerly known as SOAP"), UDDI and WSDL.
Together these define web services, also known under the Microsoft brand name .Net. Unlike WIDL, the companies that host these services, not the consumers of the services, create web services. This enables more stability, an easier and more standard integration process and much more powerful
capabilities.
What is the ralationship between xml and b2b?
B2B is all about tying together the IT systems of trading partners. This is exactly what the XML alphabet soup described above is all about, machine-to-machine communications. In fact, B2B just might be the killer app the web services people are looking for.
In the movie "The Graduate" Dustin Hoffman's character is told that the future is in plastics. Today, I would have say that the future is web services, unless of course you live in the United States, especially California, then I would say it is energy.
Mike Hogan is Vice President, Strategy & Business Development
Poet Software
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