RosettaNet: Adoption Brings New Problems, New Solutions

The first phase of RosettaNet innovation and deployment was fuelled by the early challenges of achieving standards-based interoperability and making B2B integration work over the Internet. In the second phase, RosettaNet is working to reduce the cost of multi-enterprise collaboration to increase the depth of collaboration and to encourage small- and medium-sized enterprises to participate and thereby increase the breadth of multi-enterprise collaboration. This paper focuses on the XML-based technologies and methodologies that RosettaNet is using to address the principal challenges of the second phase, and shares some insights that may be useful for those facing the challenge of creating standards for information exchange within an enterprise or between enterprises.

Damodaran, Suresh. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>Case Studies>XML

XML, REST, and SOAP at Yahoo

Yahoo Search Marketing makes extensive use of XML internally, for data exchange and APIs between back-end systems, and externally, as the primary interaction mechanism with third parties via REST and SOAP APIs.

Darugar, Parand. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>SOAP

XML and the Many Metamodels of Enterprise Metadata

Enterprise metadata appears in many languages and formats. XML provides a standard and consistent language for metadata, simplifying both interchange and parsing. But simply storing metadata as an XML file (be it XSD, BPEL, WSDL, J2EE EJB descriptors files, or any of dozens of proprietary formats) does not automatically and formally capture the full richness of the given metadata language. Even if XSDs are used to constrain syntax, they cannot define all possible structures and relationships, nor can they express the meaning of metadata in its business context.

Borenstein, Joram and Joshua Fox. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>Metadata>XML

Unit Testing in XSLT 2.0

One of the tenets of modern software design is that early and frequent testing is a key contributor to successful application development. Unit testing frameworks, tools designed to ease the development and execution of unit tests, exist for many programming languages. This paper discusses how unit testing can be applied to the development of stylesheets and describes a testing framework for XSLT 2.0 unit tests.

Walsh, Norman. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>XSL

A Close Look at the Compact XML Schema-Aware XML Processing Framework

Wide deployment of XML technology in enterprise applications demands high performance XML processing framework. This results in extensive investigation on building an XML processing infrastructure leveraging a compact, pre-parsed XML format, which could save in the memory and CPU consumption as well as the network bandwidth. In this paper, we will discuss the project building a compact schema-aware binary XML processing framework and compare it with the existing binary XML technologies. The discussion will cover the design of the compact binary XML format, the implementation for the compact binary XML processors, which encode and decode the XML documents, and how the compact binary XML support is integrated with the existing XML processing stack. At the end, we will provide the result testing applications leveraging the compact binary XML processing framework.

Wang, Jinyu. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML

A Generalized Grammar for Three-way XML Synchronization

This paper proposes a general synchronization grammar which can describe synchronization rule sets. For example, when handling three input files, we show that changes to elements can be described in terms of just seven possible permutations. Similarly, PCDATA and attribute changes can be described in terms of a fixed set of permutations. Using these permutations a grammar is proposed, allowing precise description of synchronization algorithms and rule sets and providing a testable framework for their implementation. The paper applies the resulting grammar to existing synchronization tools and technologies and shows how the grammar can be applied to provide solutions for specific application areas, including document workflow and translation.

La Fontaine, Robin and Nigel Whitaker. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>Programming>XML

Functional XML: A Preliminary Sketch

Existing XML processing models are pipelines, controlled by pipeline descriptions which resemble shell scripts. Functional XML allows XML documents to specify their own processing explicitly, without losing the generality of the pipeline script approach.

Thompson, Henry S. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML

Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) in the Real World

Management is an essential for any organization planning to make production use of SOA. Even at the outset of a Web services project, success hinges on defining, tracking and controlling appropriate service levels. When implementing Web services, organizations need to review and analyze quality-of-service (QoS) metrics in order to plan for growth, minimize risk and justify additional investments. Once in production, loosely coupled systems require heightened security measures and a means for handling unexpected business conditions. In this session, the author will review how two leading financial services organizations built and deployed production-ready SOA systems, and, as a result, significantly reduced development cycles and total cost of ownership. Ed will also discuss the benefits these companies have achieved from implementing their SOA systems, the challenges they overcame and how they plan to extend their SOA systems to realize greater business benefit in the future.

Horst, Ed and Christopher Sirna. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML

The Future of XML Information Management

Discusses how XML is changing the definition of 'Information Management' and the challenges associated with this change. XML provides endless opportunities when it comes to solving complex data issues companies face today from data integration to implementation of Service Oriented Architectures(SOA). Companies that choose to exploit the advantages of XML will undoubtly gain an edge over their competitors but will also be required to solve the challenges around how to best manage and service XML data without compromising data security and integrity.

Picciano, Robert. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>Planning

XML Authoring for Those Who Don't Like Markup

Advances in word processing technology now enable people to author simple documents in an interface they are familiar with. They no longer need to know a lot about markup, the schema in use, or be distracted by other concerns than writing what they want to write. This simpler interface, built upon a Microsoft "Smart Doc" solution provides support for authors who are focused on the content they are writing rather than the markup that describes it. At the same time, the author is producing valid XML that can be routed for review and approval, used for multi-channel delivery, or reused by other authors in the enterprise. Several scenarios of how such an authoring/management system could be used to solve business challenges are described.

Parsons, Jon. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>Software>XML

Records, Tags and Pipelines

Serving XML is a markup language for expressing XML pipelines, and an extendible Java framework for defining the elements of the language. It provides a markup language for expressing flat-XML, XML-flat, flat-flat, and XML-XML transformations in pipelines. This article provides a brief introduction to the vocabulary of this language, and some examples of its flat-XML capabilities.

Parker, Daniel. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Information Design>XML>Workflow

Microsoft Office Open XML Formats

This session will provide a technical description of the new Microsoft Office Open XML formats that will become the default XML based formats of the coming version of Microsoft Office (Office 12). The Microsoft Office XML formats provides a great Open and standard-based XML format for Office Documents that enables new XML document scenarios that were not possible before.

Paoli, Jean and Brian Jones. IDEAlliance (2005). Articles>Word Processing>Information Design>XML

Peaceful Coexistence: The SGML/XML Transition at Cessna Aircraft

The transition in a markup-based publishing environment from SGML- to XML-based tools and procedures can sometimes be complex. This session details Cessna Aircraft Company's implementation as it moves from an SGML environment to an XML enviroment.

Hahn, Michael. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Case Studies

Building Dynamic Applications With Mozilla, REX and XQuery.

The Mozilla platform offers a rich support of XML techniques, from low level ones (XPath, RDF, DOM, e4x) to rendering dialects like XHTML, SVG, XUL and XForms, thus making this platform a natural choice for the XML inclined. It is becoming a platform of choice when developing rich connected applications. When building dynamic applications, the developer is often facing a common set of programming patterns : gathering data from various remote and local sources, storing data with an optional transformation phase, and updating parts of the GUI to reflect the modifications in the data store. With today's ubiquitous use of XML as a data exchange syntax, a major part of these tasks can be achieved with XML based solutions. In this article we will present an XML centric solution that aims at minimizing the impedance mismatch between different data models that plagues classical architectures involving for instance XML/object/relationnal translation. It combines some of Mozilla's existing capabilities with REX (Remote Events for XML) and a native XML database with XQuery support. REX provides means to update the XUL based GUI and the database, while the XML database is used as a versatile storage engine.

Desré, Fabrice. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Web Design>Information Design>XML

XQueryP: An XML Application Development Language

XQuery is a language that operates on XML in its native data model, using the type system of XML Schema. By the time of the XML 2006 conference, XQuery Version 1.0 will probably be adopted as a W3C Recommendation. Like SQL, XQuery is declarative and functional, which makes it well-suited for automatic optimization. XQuery Version 1.0 is designed for querying and transforming XML data, and W3C has published a working draft of an XQuery extension for updating XML data. With an additional small extension, XQuery could be turned into a native application development language for XML, eliminating the impedance mismatch problem. An earlier paper briefly outlined such an extension, called XQueryP. This paper expands on the XQueryP proposal, adding more details, additional features such as error handling, and some use cases that illustrate the use of the extended language in various different environments.

Kossmann, Donald. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XSL>XML

A Study of the Adoption and Usage of XML Schema - Its Design and Results

There is an obvious need to understand the current adoption and the current usage of XML Schema by the IT industry. That is, XML standardization bodies, XML tool providers, and IT decision makers need to know about the current position of XML Schema on the 'adoption curve'; they would like to know who is using XML Schema, what it is used for, and how users reflect on their usage. All sorts of more detailed questions arise: Is XML Schema usage observably increasing? Who is authoring schemas? (Developers? DBA's? Analysts? Who else?) Who is consuming schemas? What tools are used to author and consume schemas? What other meta-data languages are used in the same corporation? The study at hand covered these and some more questions. The goal was to gather broad information on XML Schema adoption and usage, leaving room for studies that dive into more detailed subtopics. There were 2,000 solicited participants of the study with 59 completed responses. The presentation (paper) does not just present the results of the study, but also motivates the study, describes its design, and draws some conclusions. This study has been carried out in collaboration with the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Kitsis, Stan. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML

XML Project Management Best Practices

Three panellists talk about the challenges of managing an XML publishing and documentation project. After brief introductory remarks from each speaker, there will be a general discussion with the audience about the challenges of XML project management in the publishing world.

Hamilton, Kate, Sarah S. O'Keefe and Mike Sherlock. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Project Management>Information Design>XML

Daddy? Where Do Schemas Come From? Some Facts of Life for Schema Users

The rules for finding schema components when validating a document using W3C's XML Schema 1.0 are widely misunderstood. This presentation will the rules for constructing a schema and describe the reasoning behind the design.

Sperberg-McQueen, C.M. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Standards

Word and OpenOffice for XML Authoring

In this session, three panellists and audience members will discuss creating XML documents using two familiar word processors: Microsoft Word and OpenOffice. Paul Bernard will introduce some real-world examples of how publishers are using Microsoft Word in XML workflows, and how Office 2007 and OpenXML will affect those processes. Jon Parsons will discuss XML, Office 2007, and content management for document integration in the middle tier. Lisa Richards will discuss XML authoring in OpenOffice.

Hatter, Clyde, Mark Jacobson and Jon Parsons. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Word Processing>Information Design>XML

Resistance is Futile: You Will Store XML

Industry standards consortia have defined thousands of exchange formats for business related messages in XML Increasingly, data conforming to industry exchange formats are being stored in files and database systems as XML (as well being mapped to relational data). This talk describes what happens when the exchange formats and the storage formats become one. Business applications can be built in new ways that can reduce development costs and more readily accommodate evolving business requirements. The use of generic tools rather than bespoke software becomes more attractive. The criteria for managing XML schemas and for XML schema evolution change. The talk will outline trends arising from the unification of storage formats and exchange formats. It will incorporate a case study to illustrate the main points.

Malaika, Susan. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Case Studies

XML Pipeline Processing

Pipeline processing is a powerful programming technique that can lead to programs that are easier to maintain and enhance and monolithic imperative programs. Developers familiar with the power of pipeline operations central to the UNIX operating system know how simple, modular tools can be chained together to accomplish a wide variety of complex tasks. XSLT pipelines offer the same advantage for XML transformation. Where UNIX pipelines are based around standard input and output of lines of text, XSLT pipelines rely on the structure of well-formed XML between stages. The panel members will demonstrate the value of a pipeline processing approach and discuss implementation specifics.

Page, Sam and Norman Walsh. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Workflow

Agile XML Development

Three panellists talk about how they've applied agile development techniques to XML, followed by audience discussion and Q&A: Tony Coates will discuss XML and schema quality assurance using unit test frameworks. David Carver will discuss agile XML schema development. Claudia Lucia Jimenez-Guarin will discuss software construction for evolving systems with incomplete data definition.

Carver, David, Anthony Coates and Claudia Lucía Jimenez-Guarin. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Agile

Unleashing the Power of XML

The "Unleashing the power of XML" presentation provides insight, from 20 years personal experience in the publishing industry, on the value of good markup and the challenges of migrating from SGML to XML based systems. We will review the results of an informal survey of the publishing industry that focuses on how XML is (and is not) being leveraged and the rationale behind these decisions. Finally, we will discuss a 'new' technology that has the potential to revolutionize the publishing industry as well as highlight some real world applications already leveraging this technology.

McBeath, Darin. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Information Design>XML>Case Studies