XML – the common language is half the battle

1999-07-04

Articles of recent news point to both the crisis and the opportunity offered by XML, the eXtended Markup Language which looks set to be the standard language for business to business communications. First, IBM and Rational have announced that they are hooking up their software development environments via an XML bridge. Second, Oracle has announced an XML interface to its 8i database management system. Both show the importance of metalanguage standards, or the lack of them.

The first article is an example of what is possible if such standards are in place. The Object Management Group has ratified both the interchange mechanism and the metalanguage definition, in the form of XMI and UML respectively. The net result is that two applications know how to communicate with each other and they also understand what is being communicated.

How different things look in other sectors, as indicated by Oracle’s modus operandi. XML contains tags to represent specific types of data. Oracle have taken a low level approach, providing an engine which can be configured to recognise the tags in XML content, enabling it to remain standards-independent. This differs from Microsoft’s approach, which has involved setting up a standards body to define the tags. Complicated? Yes it is. The net of the absence of standards has been a free for all, with different vendors trying to impose their own standards by strength or stealth (and Oracle and Microsoft are just two of many players in this game).

Eventually, one side will win and the other will lose. What a shame. As the software development community has already demonstrated, the benefits to all players of having standards in place are great. The stakes are high, admittedly, but it is likely that the costs of the battle will far outweigh the benefits, to all but a few.

(First published 4 July 1999)