XML/SOAP/etc.
CHI-Web: Summary: Designing for VoiceXML (and telephone interfaces in general)
It’s interesting to see folks start trying to markup data that describes the way people interact with the world, such as getting from place to place.
Here’s the SOAP spec on msdn.
Template Resolution in XML/HTML (via cam).
I have to say that tag-based programming seems awfully painful. I wonder how long we’ll be doing things this way.
This XSL XML-RPC to SOAP Translator is making me want to move to hawaii and build furniture for a living (ultimately via edd dumbill).
Scripting pointed to this SOAP—WebServices Resource Center.
This one’s for taylor: an XML-RPC capable spell-checker. Er, of course it’s still in beta.
Ooooh, taylor pointed to VizBang, which is working on a browser/editor for IAML (Information Architecture Markup Language). I slightly mistrust the VRML-ness of all this, but I am absolutely excited to see people starting to develop better tools for what I do than Visio.
On O’Reilly net, the first of a series on methods of retrieving data from backend applications.
XML Data Islands, combined with XMLHttp is just plain rad! First the bad news: IE 5 only. The exciting, thing, though is that this is a big step away from page-based web applications (which suck) towards multi-state, single-page apps. The ability to manipulate data (including communication back and forth to the server) without switching pages means we can finally start moving beyond clunky wizard interfaces. But, well, did I mention that it’s MSIE 5 only.
As much as I want an alt.browser and pine for standards with teeth, part of me definitely respects Microsoft’s strategy of making IE so incredibly much better that people are forced to develop for its extensions. Basically they see the lack of adoption of proprietary extensions like Netscape’s <layer> tag as evidence of inferior design and implementation rather than as condemnation of the strategy of extending the browser beyond accepted standards. And, wow.. look at what they’ve built.
I tend to agree with taylor’s thoughts on Netscape 6. The summary: Mozilla has a lot of good stuff under the hood, such as XML and CSS/DOM standards-compliance, but the interface is some kind of sloppy anti-design that clutters the screen with AOL cruft which competes visually with the content. XUL is interesting, sure, but unless the page author can control them skins are not an interface design solution.
From uidesign.net, a proposal to the W3C: XML Document Navigation Language outlines a syntax for marking up data for navigation within a document (for teeny-tiny screens like cellphones and butter dishes). As the uidesign review of XDNL points out, this may work for static documents, but not as well for applications. (I also think we probably ought to avoid designing all our content-delivery tools for the crappy displays on today’s cellphones).
I think a big part of the trouble is that we’re trying to organize all types of data (including applications) in terms of documents. It’s that same old the-web-was-designed-for-physics-papers problem.
Mappa.Mundi: Demystifying Metadata.
It’s great when people do your work for you.. Captain Cursor linked to SOAP on a ZOPE, which, indeed, includes lots of good XML-RPC links. I actually don’t think it’s that hard to think of useful applications for this stuff (although they always seem to involve Yahoo calendar).. what I want to see is an explanation of how we’re going to convince companies whose sole business model is making money off their users’ data to open that data up to their competitors. In response to this question, Dave Winer suggested to me that non-web developers who had proprietary file formats back in the day probably said the same thing. But they were selling software, not the data itself. Am I missing something here? Or will users simply demand interoperability and force the market to deal with it.
Here’s Dave Winer on What is a Web Application?.
But, um, what is a web app? The definition starts becoming impossibly broad.. is all that separates a “web” app from a traditional app the fact that it’s based on a markup language? Is it that it speaks http?
The exciting things to me about “web apps” are:
- They’re free ;)
- They are accessible to many authors. By opening application development to non-C-coders, we inevitably increase the pace of interface innovation (heh.. so we can have lots of Buffy the Vampire Slayer skins all over our apps ;)
- They are standards-based so that I can access them from most anywhere.
- They are “of” the net. In other words, they let me do things I couldn’t do with non-networked apps.
The interesting thing about that second point is that really all I care about is having my data on the network (and in an open format). That’s why I see xdrive as much more useful than halfbrain even though it’s ostensibly more limited and why I really like the idea of an XML-RPC-accessible world.
This is probably obvious, but I think the biggest obstacle to widespread implementation of XML-RPC will be overcoming the business logic against openness of data. Most web app companies make all their money off the data they collect as people use their apps, right? So, if we can’t protect this data, they will not open up their apps to remote procedure calls. I think the big reason RSS has been successful is that it specifically drives traffic to the originating site. So, can anyone make the business argument for opening data to XML-RPC?
More on getting web applications to talk to each other: XML Inter-Application Protocols. I can’t wait for this stuff to take off.
XML Web Pages with Mozilla from camworld. Soon, my pretties, soon we shall separate structure from presentation.
OK, so I’m using blogger to manage posts to this site, and Atomz to add search and they are both really great tools (and free!) and I can manage the site from anywhere because they’re web-based, BUT I have to go to multiple sites with multiple logins and multiple templates and make sure I keep track of changes. I’d love to see some integration/standardization, perhaps using XML-RPC, so either I could control both sites through a Dreamweaver extension (as taylor suggested to me) or somehow, the sites could figure out a way to work together (picture the cobranding opportunities!).