Fulfilling the Promise of XML-based Office Suites?

brentlaminack asks: "Almost a year ago Tim Bray of XML fame said '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.' Now that MS has dropped the ball on the XML Office front, and StarOffice has fulfilled its XML promise, where are all those 'wonderful new things?' Is anybody out there writing Perl/Java/whatever programs to take advantage of StarOffice XML? Could this be an opportunity for Free/Open/Libre software to leapfrog MS Office in real productivity as XML proponents have promised all along?" What kinds of new and wonderful things can you come up with?

Comments

XML...

[ewombatnet]

I think one of the main problems with the embedding of XML architecture into office productivity software is unfortunately the end user. I mean, how long have programmes like MS Word had "document properties" contained in them, and how many people are actually using them? I'm currently working on a project to retrieve documents accross a company's backed-up data from the past 10 years, and there is very very little metadata available for us to do any searching on. Unless the embedded XML contained within office suites is brought more "to the fore" and in the face of users, instead of being a behind the scenes 'option', people just are not going to use it

Re:XML...

[Trolling4Dollars]

There are two ways to look at this. ONe way is to make the assumption that the problem lies with the user and the other is that the problem lies within the computer. Even though computers have gotten easier to use, they aren't really easy at all for the average user. The barriers to ease of use are plenty:

-Feature overload (many features that users will never use)
-PCs are incredibly complex because they are so flexible and can do so many things.
-User interfaces are pretty poorly designed and don't seem to be getting any better.
-Humans don't "interface" well

If the mode of interacting with computers was like interacting with another person, they would be considerably easier to use. I often joke with my wife that *I* and the ultimate user interface. If you think about it, the best interface for the average user would be a very human-like avatar. Yes, this interface would suck for someone like me (a real computer user), but that's not who it would be targetted at.

Getting back to the XML subject, these same problems are what keep it from gaining any ground with the average user. The average user still doesn't "get" electronic documents. That's why they always resort to printing them out on paper. To be sure, there are times when a document SHOULD be printed on paper, but that's only really about 20% of the time. The other 80% a document is much better to keep in electronic format. With XML, so much the better. But if the average user has trouble understanding even a basic text file, the ultra-documents that XML can lead to will be completely bewildering. How do we solve this? I've argued this before over and over again: we need new input devices and now I will extend that to new output devices. If we had more variety with the output device, XML documents would be the next "great thing". The XML document has arrived too soon. If we had electronic paper that XML docs could be loaded into, there would be a revolution. It will happen, not just yet. And when it does happen, look for some big corporation to be backing something that looks a lot like XML, but it will have a different more friendly name and will be claimed as innovative.

Re:XML...

[chiasmus1]

The important thing about XML is not the end users. As an end user I could care less about the formation of the document as long as I knew I would always have an application that could read the document.

With XML documents, if the file format is well known, there will be filters for it. Major Office Suites will support well known file formats. If the file format is not as well known, but it is simple XML, there are high chances that smaller applications will also have filters for it.

I like to write web software and I was discouraged when I discovered that I could not find a Perl library to create OpenOffice.org files, so I created one of my own. Granted it is not the best library, and is probably full of bugs, but it was easy to create and the research was painless. It does the job I made it for and I use it.

Compare that to the time when at work my boss asked me to take a Pick Basic binary datebase file and extract the data from it. I had to play around a while to figure out which bytes meant what and how to get the information out.

XML not only makes creation easy, but makes reverse engineering trivial. XML is not for the end users, it is for the developers why do not have the time to sit and read the 500 pages of the file format spec.

Re:Not a big innovation

[kfg]

The great man himself gave you a clue to great wisdom. Not everyone has that chance.

And you blew it, Grasshopper.

The lesson was, "The right tool for the job."

Sometimes the right tool, despite all the modern technolgical advances, is still a rock.

KFG