Programmer Musings

XML Living Up To Its Promise

XML.com: Opening Open Formats with XSLT [Feb. 04, 2004]

This article by Bob DuCharme is a great example of something we don't see enough of. He takes data from a defined XML application (OpenOffice.org Impress format). He uses standard tools (XSLT) to extract and format data useful to him.

This is not the normal If I put my data in XML everyone will be able to use it message we see everywhere. It is also not an example of business-based conversion of some consortium-sponsored format into some other consortium-sponsored format. It's not even the (often) contrived examples from XML books of how XML makes our lives better.

This is a great example of someone with a very specific need that is solved by standard tools and XML. This specific need is not something that the OpenOfice.org team would want to dedicate the time to satisfy. Since they chose an open XML file format, they don't have to. The user owns his data in a more meaningful way than if the same data were in a proprietary format.

In the 5 years I've been working with XML, I've almost never seen this kind of example. What's more amusing is that this use has been promised all along. I've spent a lot of my time working with special purpose XML applications that I've crafted for a handful of uses. This article is the wakeup call I needed to remind me to look at some other formats again.