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Tim Bray on Microsoft Office
jgeelan writes "The co-inventor of XML, Tim Bray, has been talking about the newly XML-enabled version of Microsoft Office, code-named 'Office 11' and tells XML-Journal that 'when the huge universe of MS Office documents becomes available for processing by any programmer with a Perl script and a bit of intelligence, all sorts of wonderful new things can be invented that you and I can't imagine.'"
One small such point is when IBM gave out the specs to their hardware for PC allowing everyone to clone it, while Apple did not.
This could be such a point. Maybe in 10 years we'll look back at this and ask ourselves "Why the heck did MS XML-enable their Office app, releasing the hold that they had"
Only time will tell I guess.
I Play Hattrick
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
As far as I can tell, one of the major reasons many businesses refuse to change over from Microsoft Office to cheaper options is due to file compatability. As our company's IT admin put it recently on the suggestion of using OpenOffice, "I get sent hundreds of Microsoft Word, Excel and Access documents a week. I need to know that I can open and access every single one of those without problems". An example of proprietry file formats helping Microsoft keep the monopoly.
However, if Microsoft Office documents become "built around an open, internationalized standard", i.e. XML, would this not enable the people behind OpenOffice, StarOffice etc to acheive total 100% file compatability and thus negate Microsoft's largest advantage with Office?
Of course, this could be yet another Microsoft "embrace and extend" tactic, a la` kerberos. Incorporate the standard in a bastardised form, claim standards compatability, then pollute it so you must be using Microsoft technology to properly interact with it.
Janie took my gun...
Just look at an HTML file exported form Word2k. I would not call that compatible with any HTML I've ever learned. Most probably the XML file exported from Office 11 will be a Microsoft specific file, specifying lots of Office specific ActiveX (aka OLE) info that cannot be emulated. And, hey, they can probably store binary data in XML. The only change is that most competing products will emit files that Word can easily read, i.e. M$ will get the biggest benefits.
Maybe they need a migration path away from the win32-based format they use now. .NET also seems to follow that path. Remember that MS needs access to other platforms than the i386/desktop in the future - mobile devices for instance. Keeping a format that is basically a binary image from a PC is good for locking out competition, but not when you have to start competing with yourself.
As long as you don't get a DTD with extensive comments on how to interpret the elements, along with some promise/guarantee that the DTD won't change every minor release, there is no real improvement at all.
Have you ever tried to reverse engineer a binary file format? And have you ever tried to do the same thing with an XML file format? I learned huge chunks SVG yesterday _without_ opening an SVG book, just by mucking around in an existing SVG file and with an SVG viewer. Of course, Microsoft could do something clearly in violation of the spirit of XML, by making the whole thing one tag full of base64ed text or something. But as long as they use tags in a semi-sane way (which is the whole point, for integration with corporate systems), XML will be a big step forward.
SQL Server has had an XML web gateway since version 2000. You can run any query and output it as xml or have an xml template pull the query and transform the results with XSL, all without one line of server side script.
ASP.net uses XML for all the human-readable files, and the IIS in windows.net server finally uses Apache-style configuration files which are also XML.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
The thread a couple of weeks ago about the death of META headers will apply 1000 times worse for semantic tags-- if the semantic web is going to work at all it needs to start from headers describing the webpage as a whole.
(Also, what's with XML-Journal's claim the article has three pages when it only has two?)
The open office group should get together with the rest of the guys (abyword, koffice and maybe wordperfect) and work out a format that can be submitted to the ISO. Possibly based on the open office format.
Then goverments and corporation will adopt it for official documents so they can read their own documents in ten years.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
There are 2 problems with the current format of Microsoft Office file:
This is mostly solved (thanks to years of trials and errors).
This is definitively more difficult, as nobody knows Office internals and how they expect such additional data to be. StarOffice guys managed to make an acceptable job, at the price of years of trials and errors. It's like watching at a dump of your computer's memory, guesssing what's code, what's data, what's padding and the meaning of every byte...
Now, do an XML format simplifies things? Well, yes, just as an RTF text is easier to manage than a pure binary format, but nothing prevents putting extra cruft in an XML document, so it's just that instead of having to use a hex editor, you now may use a text editor, but giving a correct interpretation of tags and attributes is something that only Microsoft can do, unless it publishes the full specifications (present and future: after all, XML is eXtendible, right?)
Personally, I think that:
"Son, in a sporting event, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get" - Homer J. Simpson
I think the reason that they are switching over is probably due to the trend in emerging foriegn markets. Peru being a prime example. Countries are starting to enact legislation that requires any government procurments of software to only be for software that uses an open file format. Due to the long term storage problems.
This tied to the fact that US sales are going to slow down or are already, due to the complete inundation of PC, they need new markets, and unless they use an open format they won't be able to get them. I'd be panicked Linux and Java eroding their server market. Governments are eroding their Office market. They only way they can grow is add value.