Articles and Essays

XML Essays

Since finishing XML: A Primer, I've continued writing about XML and possible implementations and lines of development. I also write brief articles on a regular (almost daily) basis for xmlhack.

• Why I don't like RDF (rant)
• Making Web Services Part of the Web
• A Child's Garden of XML
• Moving from the 'Community of Experts' to the Community (First draft)
• An Outsider's Guide to the W3C
• Trees, Graphs, and Sets (Some thoughts on XLink structures)
• XML, Integration, and the Smaller Developer
• Toward A Layered Model for XML
• Cement Shoes for XML?
• A Proposal for the Representation of XML DTDs as XML documents
• Why XML?
• Letting Go: The Futures of XML and SGML
• Bringing the File System into the File:
  Making Information More Accessible Through Object Stores

XML.com and O'Reilly Network

I've been writing a few stories for XML.com. The full list of my work there is available, but here are highlights:

• Thinking Beyond Scaling - April 2001.
• XML ain't what it used to be - February 2001.
• Getting Topical - January 2000.
• XML 2000 showfloor highlights - December 2000.
• XMLDevCon 2000 showfloor highlights - November 2000.
• News From the Expo Floor - June 2000.
• XML: A Disruptive Technology - June 2000
• On Display: XML Web Pages with Internet Explorer - May 2000 (Summary Table)
• On Display: XML Web Pages with Opera - April 2000
• On Display: XML Web Pages with Mozilla - March 2000
• When XML Gets Ugly - March 2000
• XML With Style: eBooks and XSL-FOs - March 2000
• Relax, and Take it Easy - March 2000
• Object Design becomes eXcelon Corp. - February 2000
• Describing your Data: DTDs and XML Schemas - December 1999
• XML Standards Update - December 1999
• XML'99 Expo Update - December 1999

History

As an undergraduate I studied history, which remains my main academic interest. Sooner or later, all of this XML work will lead to some new forms for historical presentations.

• Why Hypertext for History? - 1992

Presentations

Every now and then I make presentations. I'll try to post as many of them here as I can.

• What can you do with half a parser? (Playmobil remix) - August 2003.
• What can you do with half a parser? - March 2003.
• Using Markup Without Embedding Markup - August 2002.
• XML Web Services Models - April 2002.
• XML sur les navigateurs (in English except for the title) - April 2002.
• Re-valuing the Lexical in XML - March 2002.
• Regular Fragmentations: Treating Complex Textual Content as Markup - August 2001.
• Open Source, Open Data: What XML has to offer Open Source - July 2001.
• Introduction to RELAX - April 2001.
• XPointer: Referencing points and ranges inside of Documents - January 2001.
• Transformations: Making File Conversions Fun and a way of Life - January 2001.
• XML's Impact on Web Development: Remodeling Traditional Web Applications for XML - January 2001.
• Namespaces in XML: Best Practices, Risky Business - November 2000.
• Cross-Browser XML - November 2000.
• XML for Small Projects and Small Organizations - June 2000.
• XML's Interoperability Problems: Nothing is as easy as it seems - June 2000.
• XML Schemas: Setting Rules for XML Documents - March 2000. (Updated October 2000.)
• Common XML: Guidelines for Interoperability- March 2000. Part of an SML presentation
• Scripting Languages for XML: Real Processing with Lightweight Tools- March 2000.
• XML Linking Language: Creating Powerful and Flexible Hypertext Structures - October 1999 (Updated January 2001).
• Java, XML, and a New World of Open Components (PowerPoint or badly generated HTML) - March 1999

Reprints Policy

Links to this site are welcomed and need no permission. If you would like to reproduce the content of this site on your own server or reprint it for commercial distribution (i.e., you're selling it, not just passing it to your co-worker in the next cubicle), please contact me. I don't hold rights to articles that aren't hosted on this site, like the XML.com and developer.com material - you need to contact those sites directly. Thanks!

Copyright 1998 Simon St.Laurent