1998;
A Year of Change
Ring
out the Old! Ring in the New! 1998 was a year
of change. And 1999 promises even more surprises!
XML
Version 1.0 becomes a Recommendation!
After
a flurry of fast-track development, XML Version
1.0 became a W3C Recommendation just after the
first of the year. This was clearly the most significant
event of the year. And coming so early meant that
the fallout of this event could be seen throughout
our industry.
XML;
The Conference Sells Out!
In
March, GCA held it's second XML conference. The
conference was Sponsored by Microsoft and Data
Channel and co-sponsored by host of others. The
opening conference keynote was delivered by Adam
Bosworth, General Manager Microsoft Corporation.
For the first time, a GCA conference sold out.
All tutorials, keynotes and sessions were filled
to the maximum. People who flew to Seattle and
planned to register on-site were limited to Exposition
only.
Schema
Languages Provide an Alternative to DTDs!
1998
brought three proposals to W3C for the development
of an XML schema language. A schema language will
provide a powerful alternative to traditional
DTDs. Web developers believe that object-oriented
inheritance, datatyping, and an XML syntax will
facilitate the seamless interchange of all structured
data, not just documents. The first schema language,
proposed by Microsoft, Inso, Arbortext, and AIS,
was known as XML-Data. On August 10, 1998, International
Business Machines Corporation (IBM) and Microsoft
Corporation along with Tim Bray (Textuality) submitted
a proposal to the World Wide Web Consortium defining
a vocabulary for describing constraints upon XML
documents. The submission, titled "Document
Content Description for XML" or DCD. And
in October a third submission known as Schema
for Object-Oriented XML was made by developers
from VEOSystems. W3C launched a working group
that will concentrate on specifying an XML schema
language near the end of 1998.
SGML\XML
Europe Larger than Ever!
This
year's European conference was held in Paris.
There are 28 countries represented at the conference
with over 900 registrants. This conference was
the largest European conference ever. Increased
attendance can be attributed not only to the continuing
interest in SGML but the new audience interested
in XML and the Web. The large attendance provided
GCA with quite a challenge to find a location
with sufficient capacity for 1999!
The
DOM Becomes a Proposed Recommendation
On
August 19, 1998, W3C published the Document Object
Model (DOM) Level 1 Specification, Version 1.0
as a W3C Proposed Recommendation. The DOM specification
"defines the Document Object Model Level
1, a platform- and language-neutral interface
that allows programs and scripts to dynamically
access and update the content, structure and style
of documents. The Document Object Model provides
a standard set of objects for representing HTML
and XML documents, a standard model of how these
objects can be combined, and a standard interface
for accessing and manipulating them. Vendors can
support the DOM as an interface to their proprietary
data structures and APIs, and content authors
can write to the standard DOM interfaces rather
than product-specific APIs, thus increasing interoperability
on the Web.
Four
"New" Conferences for GCA
In
1998, GCA launched 4 new conferences. The first,
Metastructures, was a new name and broadened
technical focus for the conference formerly known
as the International HyTime Conference. It was
held in Montreal in August. This year's event
is co-chaired by Carla Corkern, ISOGEN International
Corporation and Steve Newcomb, TechnoTeacher,
Inc. In October GCA launched SGML Japan.
This conference, held in conjunction with a major
computer show provided tutorials and speakers
from Japan and around the world. Proceedings were
provided in Japanese and all non-Japanese speakers
were provided with simulatenous translation services.
GCA launched XML '98 in Chicago in November. This
conference replaces the traditional SGML ** conference
series. XML '98, Technology Enabling Business
on the Web, was attended by 1100 people. The
conference tracks included Newcomer , Core Technology
, Applications , Transitions , and Case Studies.
Keynote speakers from Microsoft, Netscape, Adobe,
Amazon.com, CommerceNet, and Oracle shared their
corporate XML strategies. Immediately following
XML '98, GCA launched it's new Markup Technologies
Conference. This conference focused on technical
issues relating to the design, development, and
deployment of a variety of markup technologies
including but not limited to SGML, XML, HyTime,
and DSSSL. This conference provides a two-day
forum for highly technical presentations, challenging
questions from the attendees, and lively debate
on the merits of specific markup techniques. Markup
Technologies was chaired by B. Tommie Usdin, Mulberry
Technologies, Inc. and co-chaired Deborah A. Lapeyre,
Mulberry Technologies, Inc. and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen,
University of Illinois at Chicago. It was cosponsored
by MIT Press.
Working
Draft of XSL Completed!
On
August 18, 1998 the W3C published the first public
Working Draft of XSL 1.0, Extensible Stylesheet
Language (XSL) Version 1.0." (WD-xs-19980818).
The XSL abstract states that "XSL is a language
for expressing stylesheets. It consists of two
parts: 1) a language for transforming XML documents,
and 2) an XML vocabulary for specifying formatting
semantics. An XSL stylesheet specifies the presentation
of a class of XML documents by describing how
an instance of the class is transformed into an
XML document that uses the formatting vocabulary."
XML '98 Conference CD provided demonstrations
of XSL/XML rendition of conference papers.
Looking
forward to 1999
1999
has just begun and this year promises to be every
bit as exciting as last. We start in March with
XTech '99, a new GCA technical conference sponsored
by Sun Microsystems and Co-Chaired by Jon Bosak
and Tim Bray. April brings XML '99 Europe. GCA
is revamping its Web site and OASIS is searching
for a new Executive Director. Stay tuned to the
XMLFiles for the latest breaking news.
Dianne
Kennedy
Editor,
XML Files
