> 1. text-based or not > 2. self-describing* or not > > This article seems to conflate them. > > You can have self-descriptive formats that are no > text-based and non-self-describing formats that are > text-based. > > * I hate this term because it leads a common belief that > XML can allow things that can't be done with an equivalent > non-self describing format which is of course not true. > Unfortunately I don't know of a better term.
Hi James,
You are spot on. The "science" behind all of this is well understood. The best messaging format I've used is FML from Tuxedo, a transactional message based, distributed application framework built on Unix dating from the 1980's.
We really need to get rid of the pseudo-science (marketing) in our industry. All these false choices and re-inventions of the wheel, its hard to know fact from fiction.
It looks like Artima is having a bad week. 10 top tips to make SOA projects succeed :), are MSDM and DSLs equivalent? and now this.
I come from a telecoms background, where scientific research is robust, standard terms are precise and well understood and everyone knows where they stand. When someone in telecoms says "Pulse Coded Modulation" or "Frequency Division Multiplexing" or "Binary Phase Shift keying". Everyone knows what they mean, everyone knows what each technique is good for and the trade-offs involved.
I've got nothing against Ted Neward, but shouldn't Artima be publicising academic papers? Nothing new has happened in computer science in the last 30 years. Yet we get fed this diet of drivel whilst fundamental concepts remain unexplained. Why not publish extracts from the seminal papers on messaging systems instead (even if it means going back to the 1970s to find them)?
Come back Byte Magazine and ACM SIGs publications thats what I say. They use to explain stuff!
(Sorry about the rant, but three questionable articles in a row has set me off :))
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