Connecting people to XML
XML DOCUMENTS, encapsulated in SOAP messages, are the packets
of the business Web. Standards efforts now underway focus on how to
create, transform, interpret, sign, and encrypt these packets as
they flow among communicating applications and services. Because
XML documents will often model the real business documents that
support business processes, such as purchase orders, it's clear
that people will need to be able to write them, too. Sadly, the
tools that capture nearly all of our keystrokes -- e-mail, word
processors, Web pages -- can't compose valid XML. Solving this
problem is as critical as any challenge facing Web services today.
Ideally every operating system would offer a standard XML editing
component, embeddable in Web pages and GUI applications. Wired to a
DTD (Document Type Definition) or XML Schema, this component would
allow users to interactively create or modify valid instances of
the DTD or schema. [Full story at
InfoWorld.com.]
Former URL: http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/2002/10/28.html#a489