The XML Bubble

1
The XML Bubble

• William J. Bill McCalpin
• EDPP, CDIA, MIT, LIT
• Principal, MHE

2

• Xplor 21st Global Conference and Exhibit
• Miami Beach, Florida
• October 30, 2000

3
Introduction

• The Hegelian Dialectic

4
Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis

• In the philosophy of Hegel, these words show the
  inevitable transition of thought, by
  contradiction and reconciliation, from
  an initial conviction to its opposite and then to
  a new, higher conception that involves but
  transcends both of them

5
The Hegelian Dialetic

• Thesis Most business have well-established,
  productive legacy systems
• Antithesis XML is springing forth everywhere
• Synthesis XML will be integrated with legacy
  systems - enhancing some processes, changing many
  others, and eliminating some altogether
• In short, XML will affect what you do

6
The Document In The 20th Century
7
What Is A Document?

• The American Heritage Dictionary defines a
  document as information in writing placed on a
  medium such as paper, often used as a record.
• Documents have been placed on clay tablets, gold
  leaf, animal skins, all types of paper,
  microfilm, optical storage, and so on

8
Information And Presentation

• In every case, the document represents a
  fundamental union of information and presentation
• But presentation presumes that the primary
  audience for the document is a human being
• With the coming of the Internet, this is no
  longer the case

9
The Curse Of Presentation

• Composition products require that you specify a
  printer, even before you know where the document
  will print

10
Why Are Print, Image, And Presentation Formats
Incompatible?
11
Printing And Imaging Formats

• Many printing formats AFP, Metacode, DJDE, XES
  (UDK), PostScript, PCL, etc.
• All formats use external resources like fonts,
  forms, graphics, etc., although sometimes
  inconsistently
• Most are escape-sequence based, some are formal
  data architectures, and some are almost
  programming languages

12
Printing And Imaging Formats

• Many imaging formats - while most used CCITT
  Group 4 for image compression, most also had
  proprietary data wrappers
• Later systems adopted text-based formats such as
  PDF, although storing other print streams is not
  unknown
• Systems which store text-based formats must
  wrestle with resource issues

13
Different Print Formats

• Why do printers have different formats? Because
  of physical constraints imposed by the hardware
• resources reduce the amount of data sent through
  pipeline to printer
• pages must be imaged in less than a fraction of a
  second
• complex graphics can be developed on the printer,
  but this needs a special language

14
Different Imaging Formats

• Why do imaging systems have different formats
  because of physical constraints imposed by the
  hardware
• Mass storage was expensive
• Indexing schemes were too close to the
  application
• Text is avoided sometimes because of resource
  issues
• Interoperability with other products an issue

15
Result

• In each case, data architecture decisions were
  made in order to enhance some aspect of
  legibility of the stored objects.
• If there were no requirement to present the
  information (to a human reader), then the
  requirement for custom data formats for each
  vendor would probably disappear!

16
Universal Literacy

• Whos reading our documents?

17
The Road To Universal Literacy

• First, only the few could read
• After the printing press, the many began to read
• Eventually, educational reforms brought the
  ability to read to all

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Literacy In The Internet Age

• Can there be a spread of literacy beyond all?
• How many webpages have you ever read?
• You will never be able to keep up with the Web
  alone

19
Intelligent Agents

• Just around the corner is software that will read
  the Web for us not search, but read
• So we have to spread literacy to an audience
  beyond all people, that is
• Does increased quality in presentation mean
  better computer literacy?

20
Noise On The Net

• Think of the average webpage
• three dimensional spinning objects
• marquees scrolling across the bottom
• multiple frames bookmarks
• audio
• These items are all designed to attract the eye
  your eye
• This does nothing for the machine reading the
  webpage

21
The Cost Of Data Differences

• NASA lost a 125 million Mars orbiter because
  one engineering team used metric units while
  another used English units for a key spacecraft
  operation... CNN 9/30/99

22
The Nature Of XML
23
XML And SGML

• XML is eXtensible Markup Language
• XML is an instance of SGML, Standard Generalized
  Markup Language, an ISO standard (ISO 8879)
• XML is extensible because people and
  enterprises with common interests get together to
  define the tags which describe their data

24
XML And Print Formats

• In most print formats, something like account
  number would be
• AMB 200 AMI 300 SCFL 01 STO 0, 90 TRN 12345-67890
• In XML, the same information is
• ltaccount_numbergt12345-67890

25
XML And Print Formats

• The nature of all print formats is to be focused
  on the presentation of the information.
• The nature of XML is focused on the authors
  content, that is, information is described as
  what it is, not how it looks.

26
Why XML Over Print?

• Given that print formats are focused on the
  presentation, it is often difficult for the
  non-human reader to derive information out of the
  print data.
• E.g., we could have
• AMB 200 AMI 300 SCFL 01 STO 0,90 TRN 12345 RMI120
  TRN - RMI 24 TRN 67890
• Note the data is not required to be contiguous

27
Separating Information From Presentation

• XML enables the total separation of information
  from presentation
• Thus, some XML objects have only tagged
  information, while others have content and
  presentation information

XML
XML
XSL
28
The Four Spaces
29
Dr. Davidsons DocumentSpace

• Dr. Keith Davidson, EDPP, hypothesized that we
  work in something called the DocumentSpace
• He believes that industries will become spaces
  under the influence of the Internet

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Three Spaces

• Dr. Davidson stated that there were three spaces
  PrintSpace, MarketSpace, and DecisionSpace
• PrintSpace comprised our existing industry
• MarketSpace covered documents used in financial
  transactions
• DecisionSpace deals with documents used in
  knowledge management

31
Three Spaces Become Four

• I have added a fourth space ArchiveSpace, the
  use of documents in archival and records
  management to preserve information
• These four spaces can be viewed as ---gt

32
The Use Of The Document In The Four Spaces
33
Document And Information

• The document is used as a container of
  information, particularly in the exchange of
  information across the boundaries between the
  four spaces
• Documents are used for two reasons
• (1) The lack of common data standards across the
  four spaces, and
• (2) The requirement that humans be able to read
  and process the information

34
Print To Image
35
Print To Image Format

• Print formats are Metacode, DJDE, AFP, PCL,
  PostScript, and so on
• Image formats are TIFF, MODCA, other proprietary
  formats using CCITT-4, and PDF
• Only AFP MODCA, and PostScript PDF are
  closely related, but PostScript to PDF requires a
  transform, and AFP and MODCA often arent
  implemented the same

36
Print To Market
37
Print To Market Formats

• Print formats are Metacode, DJDE, AFP, PCL,
  PostScript, and so on
• Financial Interchange formats are OFX/IFX, XML,
  and transaction data
• The significant data must be extracted out of the
  print stream to create data for SGML formats - a
  sometimes hazardous process
• However, using original transaction data may not
  be correct

38
Print To Knowledge
39
Print To Knowledge Formats

• Print formats are Metacode, DJDE, AFP, PCL,
  PostScript, and so on
• True Knowledge Management does not yet exist -
  its often blob management
• XML and its many related standards will make KM
  possible, if you think of KM as something like
  human knowledge
• As noted, XML out of existing processes can be
  hazardous

40
The Growth Of The XML Bubble
41
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XML
EBPP
43
Com- pliance
Archive
New Sales
Reprints
Policy Print
Reports
Notices
CRM
11 Mark.
Campaign Manage.
XML
Billing
HR
Pol. Proc.
EDI
EBPP
44
Com- pliance
Archive
New Sales
Reprints
Policy Print
Reports
Notices
CRM
11 Mark.
Campaign Manage.
XML
Billing
HR
Pol. Proc.
EDI
EBPP
45
Com- pliance
Archive
New Sales
Reprints
Policy Print
Reports
Notices
CRM
11 Mark.
Campaign Manage.
XML
Billing
HR
Pol. Proc.
EDI
EBPP
46
Com- pliance
Archive
New Sales
Reprints
Policy Print
Reports
Notices
CRM
11 Mark.
Campaign Manage.
XML
Billing
HR
Pol. Proc.
EDI
EBPP
47
Com- pliance
Archive
New Sales
Reprints
Policy Print
Reports
Notices
CRM
11 Mark.
Campaign Manage.
XML
Billing
HR
Pol. Proc.
EDI
EBPP
48
William J. Bill McCalpin

• EDPP, CDIA, MIT, LIT
• Principal, MHE
• 1400 Cheyenne Dr.
• Richardson, Texas 75080-3921
• 972-231-3660 (v) 972-690-4521 (f)
• mccalpin_at_mhe-consulting.com