This is just what I've pieced together from talking with the usual suspects at XML'98 and WWW7. Feel free to correct me anywhere I'm wrong. -- Adam
On February 10, 1998, the Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 syntax became a W3C recommendation; see
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-xml-19980210
At WWW7, Tim Bray rattled off a few dozen really good XML-related web pages. His slides are at
http://www.textuality.com/WWW7/
and I'll mention all the links Tim mentioned at the end of this post. But first I want to hit the latest developments in XLink, XPointer, DOM, XSL, Namespaces in XML, and (yuck) the XML Data note...
Based on Eve Maler's developer day talk at WWW7, the name "XLL" was dropped (because, the folklore goes, it was hard to stay), so XML linking split into two parts. The first part, XLink, is the linking language that governs linking from XML to anything. Their latest working draft was released March 3, 1998 at
The second part, XPointer, provides advanced addressing into XML document structures -- the linking language that governs linking to XML from anything. Their latest working draft was also released March 3, 1998 (same editors as XLink) at
and of course Robin Cover has expanded his wonderfully excessive list of goodies to include XLink and XPointer goodies
http://www.sil.org/sgml/xll.html
This is still a relatively new page, and I find it kind of funny that he put it under the sgml directory.
Based on Lauren Wood's developer day talk at WWW7, the DOM specification defines a programmatic interface for XML and HTML, and is separated into three parts: Core, HTML, and XML. Looks like DOM is stabilizing -- the level one is almost finished (including navigation and content and structure manipulation). Incorporating events and styles, among other things, will come next. So far the specification has language bindings for Java and ECMA Script, and uses OMG IDL for specs. A new version of the DOM specification was released on April 16, 1998 at
Based on Steve Zilles' developer day talk at WWW7, Extensible Style Sheets is still in its nascent stage and after flirting with names like XSS and XS has picked XSL as its preferred name. The goal of XSL is to have XML syntax and be based on both DSSSL and CSS. XSL pulls from CSS: browser-based presentation, color, font description and "web fonts", and aural CSS. XSL pulls from DSSSL: multi-column text, multiple writing directions (e.g., vertical), footnotes, page templates, headers, and footers. Read about the latest XSL developments at
but as far as I can ascertain, they won't release a requirements document for another month or so, with the goal of getting a working draft out sometime in July or August. They're aiming to become a proposed recommendation around May 1999 (in time for WWW8, I guess).
XML-Data's W3C note came out January 5, 1998 at
http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-XML-data
and I'm not sure what its status is. Any resemblance to Microsoft Office data types is purely coincidental.
Moving on, after (I surmise) much heated debate the Namespaces in XML spec came out March 27, 1998 at
http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-xml-names
Not sure how much namespaces in XML are still open to debate. For example, look at the "xml-bind" by Rick Jelliffe released March 16, 1998 as an alternative to links from types and names
http://www.chilli.net.au/~ricko/XML-bind.htm
As an aside, Rick's got some other interesting things there too, such as his cut-and-paste infrastructure for XML
http://www.chilli.net.au/~ricko/XML-cut-n-paste.htm
I have in my notebook that Rick links to XML schema stuff (either James Tauber or Rohit Khare told me this, I'm not sure which) but I can't find it. Anyone who can fill in links to XML schema stuff, feel free to post.
Now, as promised earlier, below are the links from Tim Bray's developer day talk at WWW7 in Brisbane, April 1998. His slides are at http://www.textuality.com/WWW7/
Lastly, I'd just like to point to our XML and YML pages here...
...although these seem to be hideously out-of-date in light of all the information I just posted. I'll have to update them when I have a free moment (sometime in 2003). For now, I'll just refer you to James Tauber's excellent site with all kinds of tutorials and references in it
and since I see he just did an update on May 1, 1998, he's likely to be the most up-to-date resource you'll find on all things XML. James, when is your book due out on the streets? Better yet, let me go to Amazon and frighten myself...
Yikes, I was right, you can preorder it from Amazon. It's due out in October of 1998, at 512 (!) pages. Geez. Preorder it from FoRK and get a 20% discount...
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1575213966/forkrecommendedrA/
---- adam@cs.caltech.edu