[December 31, 1997; January 09, 1997] "Will You Be Ready When/If XML Replaces HTML?" By Jeff Frentzen. In PC Week Magazine Volume 15 Number 1 (January 5, 1998) 27; also online, December 31, 1997, posted at 9:02 AM PST. See similarly the 'Opinion' Column'. Excerpt: "XML is intelligent to any level of complexity, and markup definitions can be contained within markup definitions. It is more accurately a "meta language" and is adaptable to any Web presentation need. It is not limited to Web publishing, but that is where XML is currently most relevant: as a replacement for HTML." The article also supplies seven URLs for "XML Resources." [local archive copy]

[December 31, 1997] "XML Will Do For Web Apps What HTML Did For Web Publishing." By Richard Karpinski. In InternetWeek [Insights & Incites] Issue: 695 (December 22, 1997) 44. "XML, coupled with DHTML-based scripting, will be the primary way most Web applications are built. [...] Indeed, just as HTML launched a million Web pages, XML will launch a like number of Web applications and transactions." [local archive copy]

[December 27, 1997] News article on SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) by Mark Walter, Editor of The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing: "W3C Smiles on Multimedia. Proposes Spec[ification] for Synchronizing Time-Based Media with Web Pages." Also: the SMIL database entry.

[December 27, 1997] "An Introduction to the Extensible Markup Language (XML)." By Martin Bryan, of The SGML Centre. Extent: approximately 7 pages. The document "...gives a very brief overview of the most commonly used components of the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Extensible Markup Language (XML), as specified in the Proposed Recommendation dated 8th December 1997." [local archive copy]

[December 27, 1997] "Solving the Problem of Publishing Online Documents." By Stuart Culshaw. In SunServer [An independent newsmonthly dedicated to the evolving Sun/Internet community] Volume 11, Number 12 (December 1997) 17, 22. Extract: "This article attempts to clarify the relationships among SGML, HTML and XML, and focuses on the advantages of XML as the future of online document publishing [...] XML (Extensible Markup Language) aims to bridge the gap between SGML and HTML. Essentially a simplified and modernized remake of SGML that removes many SGML's more complex and less-used features, XML is based on a flexible model that will make writing programs to handle XML much easier than writing programs for full SGML. XML will also make it easier for authors to produce documents for many different output media (such as paper, online help, or the World Wide Web) from a single source." Reprinted from Intercom Magazine, a publication of the Society for Technical Communication (STC). [local archive copy]

[December 19, 1997] "XML Standard Gets Major Backing." By Darryl K. Taft. In Computer Reseller News [Section: News] Issue 769 (December 22, 1997). Excerpt: "Activity is heating up all over the Extensible Markup Language (XML) front, with both the key standards organization and software colossus Microsoft Corp. throwing their weight behind the standard. At the Internet World '97 show, Microsoft, Redmond, Washington, unveiled commitments from leading third-party software vendors and vertical market industry initiatives to support XML, enabling the delivery of structured data over the Web in a consistent, standards-based format." [local archive copy]

[December 19, 1997] "The XML Web [ArborText's Sterken on XML's Importance]." By Jim Sterken, ArborText CEO (interviewed by nfoWorld Executive News Editor Michael Vizard). In InfoWorld 19/50 (December 15, 1997) 62. [Internet & I-Commerce, 'Hot-Seat.'] "ArborText CEO Jim Sterken has big plans for the future of Web publishing: '[XML] is broader than the Web because it provides a path as well that works for printed output...XML enables us to overcome some of the real technology problems that are showing up on the Web today. Things like vastly too many hits when searching, to the point where some people just give up practically when it comes to trying to find something from scratch'." [local archive copy]

[December 19 [30], 1997] "XML: Leading SGML Beyond Publishing." By Bob DuCharme. In <TAG> Volume 10, Number 12 (December 1997) 1-3. Note: we congratulate Bob DuCharme and <TAG> on Bob's new role as special correspondent and regular contributor for <TAG>: The SGML Newsletter, to report on "the progress of XML" for the news magazine. See also the main bibliography entry.

[December 18, 1997] "New Tools Fire Up XML. Web to Move to Higher Level as Language Evolves." By Michael Moeller. In PC Week 14/52 (December 15, 1997) 29.36. Also electronic version: December 12, 1997, 2:39 PM PST.

[December 18, 1997] "First XML Tools Hit Market. Microsoft Indicates Language is Key to Web Applications Strategy." By Richard Karpinski. In InternetWeek (December 15, 1997) 8, 21. "Think of it as the week XML got real [...] It's Been a Week of XML. A shorter story would be 'What hasn't happened in the world of XML?' -- but that wouldn't be as enlightening or interesting."

[December 18, 1997] "Microsoft Gains XML Allies. Web Format for Structured Data Built into Products." By Scott Lajoie. In Network World 14/50 (December 15, 1997) 9.

[December 15, 1997] "Microsoft Office Breaks Ground By Adopting HTML Standard as File Format. Microsoft Betting Web Documents Will Be as Pervasive as Printed Documents Are Today." December 15, 1997 press release. Extract: "Taking HTML editing further, Office documents stored in HTML will enable 'round-tripping' by implementing Extensible Markup Language (XML) technology to preserve all the Office-specific formatting in a document [...] Implementation of XML within the HTML document makes it possible to preserve Office-specific functionality, enabling Office and Web-browser users to exchange richly formatted documents with no loss of quality." ; [local archive copy]

[December 15, 1997] "XML Enters Final Round For Standard." By Nate Zelnick. In WebWeek [Internet.com] 3/42 (December 15, 1997) 25. "Both at Fall Internet World and at the SGML/XML 97 conference held simultaneously in Washington, D.C., last week, several companies outlined early plans to capitalize on XML in their products or platforms."

[December 15 [19], 1997] "XML Gets Even Closer to the Web.". By Lynda Radosevich and Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld Electric December 13, 1997. Posted at 4:27 AM PT. Also in InfoWorld 19/50 (December 15, 1997) 6.

[December 12, 1997] "XML: One hot abbreviation, but what does it mean?" By John Swenson. In [Microsoft] MSDN Online, IMHO. December 12, 1997.Excerpt: "Here's how Microsoft defines XML: ' A simplified subset of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), specifically designed for Web applications. XML provides a standard format to describe different types of data -- for example, an appointment record, a purchase order, a database record -- so that the information can be decoded, manipulated, and displayed consistently and correctly. XML provides a file format for representing data, a schema for describing data structure, and a mechanism for extending and annotating HTML with semantic information." [local archive copy]

[December 10 [11], 1997] "Metadata. What It Is and Why We Need It on the Web." By Tim Bray. In The Gilbane Report on Open Information & Document Systems Volume 5, Number 5 (September/October 1997) 1-15. A major article surveying the important topic of "metadata" in the context of networked delivery of information. As one would expect from Tim Bray: the XML and SGML connections (including RDF) are developed. See the main bibliography entry for the abstract and other information.

[December 10, 1997] "XML Gains Tool Vendor and Industry Initiative Support. Industry to Take Advantage of Microsoft's Leading Implementation of XML." Press release in conjunction with Fall Internet World '97. "Microsoft Corp. announced commitment from leading third-party software vendors and vertical market industry initiatives to support the Extensible Markup Language (XML), enabling the delivery of structured data over the Web in a consistent, standards-based format. Following is a summary of today's announcements: (1) ArborText Inc., Chrystal Software Inc., DataChannel Inc., Inso Corp. and Poet Software Corp. provide a broad set of XML-based tools for Web developers today; (2) Allaire Corp., ExperTelligence Inc., InterMax Solutions Inc., Pictorius Inc., Sybase Corp. and SoftQuad stated their intent to support XML in their respective tools, scheduled for delivery by March 1998; (3) Members of top industry sectors [e.g., the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and the Telecommunications Industry Forum (TCIF)] stated their commitment to adopt XML to deliver their structured data over the Web."

[December 10, 1997] "SGML/XML '97, Internet World on Tap This Week." In The Bulletin: Seybold News & Views on Electronic Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (December 10, 1997). Edited by Patricia S. Evans. Excerpt: "It is a busy week for showgoers as both SGML/XML '97 in Washington, DC, and Internet World in New York take place. . . At SGML/XML '97, Inso demonstrated one of the first integrated, end-to-end XML publishing solutions for creating, converting, storing, managing, indexing, searching and publishing XML content to the Web, CD-ROM and print. The DynaText Professional Publishing System and its component modules convert proprietary content from Microsoft Word, Adobe FrameMaker and Interleaf documents into XML. The XML content is then checked into the DynaBase integrated content management and publishing system. DynaBase stores and manages the XML document and serves it to the Web for viewing by Microsoft IE 4.0."

[December 09, 1997] "XML Moves Closer to Becoming a Standard." In The Bulletin: Seybold News & Views on Electronic Publishing Volume 3, Number 10 (December 10, 1997). Edited by Patricia S. Evans. Excerpt: "Last year we said that for XML to succeed, it needed to have direct support from within the browsers. We now have that in Internet Explorer 4, and partially in Communicator. This year, we're looking for improved browser support, including style sheets, which are progressing under the direction of a related working group (XSL). More important, the industry is now looking for application and style support. Such announcements from a few companies are expected later this week at XML '97 and Internet World. [...] Jean Paoli, who represents Microsoft on the W3C XML working group said he has been 'astounded at the level of excitement in XML internally at Microsoft. I can't think of a product line where data is exchanged that won't be affected'." See also the related article in this issue of The Bulletin: "SGML/XML '97, Internet World on Tap This Week."

[December 08, 1997] "XML Spec Gains Momentum with W3C Recommendation." By Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld Electric [Top News Stories] December 8, 1997. Posted at 12:05 PM PT. "The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on Monday added momentum to Extensible Markup Language (XML) by releasing the XML 1.0 specification for review and voting by W3C members. With the release, the W3C XML Working Group has given the specification a vote of confidence, calling it stable and ready for industry-wide adoption. The specification will now be reviewed and revised before possibly being finalized in about six weeks as a W3C standard." [see above]

[December 08, 1997] "Spinning out a better Web Site -- Extensible Markup Language promises to lend new structure to Internet pages, under the tutelage of the World Wide Web Consortium." By Darryl K. Taft. In Computer Reseller News [Section: Sourcing] Issue: 766 (December 1, 1997). (Quotes from Maria Miller, senior project manager in the Information Communications group at Sybase Inc., and other industry sources.)

[December 07, 1997] "Netscape Wraps its Arms Firmly Around XML, JavaBeans." By Dana Gardner and Elinor Mills. In InfoWorld Electric December 5, 1997. Posted at 5:06 PM PT. Excerpt: "Netscape at Internet World in New York next week is expected to detail its continuing embrace of Extensible Markup Language (XML) and JavaBeans technology as a way of binding its products together. Already, Netscape has issued to developers a thin-client JavaBeans container as part of the company's support for Java Developer Kit (JDK) 1.1, said Marc Andreessen, executive vice president of products at the Mountain View, Calif., company. [...] To address the management of intranet content, Netscape will next year through a project code-named Gemini provide a JavaBean that adds XML support to its products, Andreessen said...The XML rendering function, when it emerges next year, will itself be a JavaBean, meaning developers can plug it in to other applications, or Windows applications ... it will do full XML. . . in its final release form next year, [Gemini] will also do XML-based editing."

[December 07, 1997] Belated notice for a June 1997 article - "Generation X." By Adrian Orlowski. In EXE Magazine Volume 12, Issue 1 (June 1997). "User-definable markup for Web documents is on its way. In November 1996 the World Wide Web Consortium announced Extensible Markup Language as a successor to HTML. Already there are some big-name users." Also: local archive copy, text only; essential text, SGML format.

[December 07, 1997] "XML Takes W3C Step Forward." By Richard Karpinski. In CMPNet News December 5, 1997. On XML being promoted in the W3C: "While work will continue on the XML specification in W3C working groups, the move should accelerate the development of standards-based XML tools and applications. [...] The next step is Proposed Recommendation--which is the next step for XML--followed by Recommendation, which signifies that the spec is 'stable, contributes to Web interoperablity and is supported for industry-wide adoption by the W3C,' according to the group's bylaws."

[December 07, 1997] Approval of the text of informative Annex L ("Additional Requirements for XML") in the ISO 8879 TC: WG4 has accepted the text of N1954 "as the Disposition of Comments for the SGML TC ballot and N1955 as the final text of the Technical Corrigendum to ISO 8879," sending these documents to the JTC1 Secretariat for publication. The TC contains a normative Annex K ("Web SGML Adaptations") and an informative Annex L ("Additional Requirements for XML").

[December 05, 1997] "Hands-On XML: The XML Tree Viewer." By Lisa Rein. Web Review XML Reference Guide. "In our 'Hands-On XML' feature, Lisa Rein demonstrates an XML Tree Viewer for managing Web collections. This is a Java applet that you can use to organize any Web collection. . . This tree viewer was developed by John Tigue and uses his XML parser, Pax Syntactica. We'll use this viewer to show you a rather interesting application of the Channel Definition Format (CDF), which is defined in XML. The viewer applet will also help us to understand some basic concepts about XML parsers."

[December 05, 1997] Publication of "XML: Can the Desperate Perl Hacker Do It?". By Michael Leventhal. In Web Review December 05, 1997. Reprinted from the World Wide Web Journal (W3J).

[December 05, 1997, updated January 06, 1998] "Extensible Markup Language. XML describes structured data packages that move around the Web as easily as HTML." By Jon Udell. In Byte Magazine Volume 23, Number 1 (January 1998) 80. [Tech Outlook '98: 1998's Top 25 Technologies] "XML lets Web developers represent object data as tagged text, easily exchange data among clients and servers, and allow rich tools for parsing, validating, and rendering data in browsers. With XML and supporting tools, much procedural work should go away. Data definition moves to a declarative mode, using SGML-style (Standard Generalized Markup Language) Document Type Definitions (DTDs) or the newly proposed XML-Data schemata. Parsing and validation of data also don't need procedural logic. Even formatting for display can in theory be declarative. It's a mapping between an XML object model and a browser's object model. Who supports it? - Sun, Microsoft, and Netscape. Software distributors: Microsoft, Marimba. Webcasters: PointCast, DataChannel. XML tools: ArborText, Inso." [local archive copy]

[December 04, 1997] "From Tags to Riches [XML, The language set to make the Web smarter]." By Kevin Wilson. In The Guardian [Online Section] December 4, 1997. With photo of Tim Bray, who is quoted throughout. Extract: "Bray also predicts that XML could make the Web faster and more powerful to use: 'The Web is kind of boring and slow. To make it interesting and fast we need to be able to download some "smarts" (as in Java), and some rich data (as in XML) into the Web browser so it can do some useful work without having to do round trips across the Net for every little transaction.' Java is a cross-platform Web language that enables data and programs to be sent across the Net. In combination with XML, it could take the strain off Web sites by gathering chunks of smarter information from the Web and downloading them to the user's PC, where the Java applet does the processing." [local archive copy] .

[December 02, 1997] "Vendors to push XML as all-purpose Web middleware format." By Lynda Radosevich and Dana Gardner. In InfoWorld Electric [Top News Story] Posted at 6:30 AM PT, December 1, 1997. Also published as: "XML Runs for Office. DataChannel Links to Microsoft Apps," Info World 19/48 (December 1, 1997) pages 1, 24. "Vendors are gearing up to make a business case next week for using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) as an all-purpose data format for Web-based middleware. At Internet World '97, in New York, and at Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)/XML '97, in Washington, DataChannel will announce an effort to integrate XML, which has emerged as a significant meta-data standard, with established Microsoft productivity applications. [...] Microsoft may also participate in the DataChannel announcement. The company is expected to discuss its plans to use XML as the data format for its Office applications, and about upcoming XML query language and repository strategies." [extracted]

[December 01, 1997] "XML and CSS," by Stuart Culshaw, Michael Leventhal, and Murray Maloney. In Web Review [Songline Studios, Inc.] November 28, 1997. "The Extensible Markup Language, more commonly referred to as XML, is a simpler, yet powerful, subset of the Standard General Markup Language (SGML). XML extends HTML beyond its limited tagset, and allows the developer to describe the structure and data content of a document. This makes it easier for authors to write it, and for computer programs to process it. In an effort to help bring XML to the forefront, Web Review begins a series of excerpts from the W3J to show developers how they can apply XML to their sites. [. . .] In this article we outline the steps for using a CSS style sheet in an XML document; we discuss the limitations of CSS in complex applications; and we present a real life example."

[December 01, 1997] "Smart Web Publishing into the Future," by Jeffrey Veen. In [HotWired]: webmonkey - A How-to Guide for Web Junkies [97/48, December 01, 1997]. "Wouldn't it be better if you could retain the true structure of your document, retain all the detailed information about the content on your page? You could put <AUTHOR> tags around the name of the person who wrote the story and a <BYLINE> tag around that. That, my friends, is the utopian vision of XML, the eXtensible Markup Language. And that is the future of publishing on the Web."

[November 28, 1997] "If XML does replace HTML, it will be a different kind of Web." By Peter Judge. In WOT Newsletter Issue 23 - 28 November 1997. "I spent a very useful day at Technology Appraisals' XML conference in London, chaired by Tim Bray. [...] The big thing I got from the day was a realisation of just how much excitement there is behind XML, and how much of a difference the approach has from the conventions that have evolved in the HTML Web." [local archive copy]

[November 24, 1997] "XML Seen as Untangling the Web." By Paul McNamara. In Network World [Intranet Applications] 14/47 (November 24, 1997) 39. Excerpt: "Heartened by a public profession of faith from Bill Gates himself, vendors evangilizing the Extensible Markup Language believe they are nearing the day when XML makes Web-based document searches far more precise and valuable. [...] At a recent trade conference in San Francisco, Gates helped demonstrate an XML application using Internet Explorer and XML-enabled software from ArborText, Inc., of Ann Arbor, Mich., to access the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition. 'What XML will do is lower the cost of deploying richer, more interactive, more powerful, and ultimately more business-critical applications on the Web,' said P.G. Bartlett, vice president of marketing at ArborText. 'With Microsoft paving the way, it makes all of us believe that there is really going to be a lot of momentum behind this'." Also in Network World Fusion, 11/17/97. [local archive copy]

[November 24, 1997] "E-COMMERCE. Web agents will give users some leverage." By Walid Mougayar. In Lan Times Online November 24, 1997. Excerpt: "Most of these agent technologies will rely on eXtensible Markup Language (XML), a new standard under the auspices of the World Wide Web Consortium for Web data and document types, which will unleash an unparalleled level of interoperation among Web sites. New agents will rely on XML formats to "read" Web sites' commercial information and return accurate, comprehensible query results to their initiators, whether individuals or other Web sites. Widespread adoption of XML will begin early next year, so it's best to get ready for it now." [local archive copy]

[November 24 [December 07], 1997] "Extend The Web: An XML Primer," by Thomas A. Powell (Powell Internet Consulting LLC). In In Information Week Issue: 691 [Section: Reviews] (November 24, 1997). Conclusion: "But even though it can be rigged, HTML still does not provide all that is necessary to bring structure to the Web. XML is a far better long-term solution. Yet the universality of HTML should not be dismissed in favor of XML. HTML is like the English of the Web; it is a common language that, while not always well-spoken, is generally understood. XML provides the opportunity to create specialized languages for industries and applications. Such languages may have significant power within particular communities, especially private ones like intranets, but on the Internet frontier such success may be elusive. What we will probably get is a peaceful coexistence between HTML and XML. It is more than likely that a future version of HTML will be defined as an XML application rather than of SGML, but this will be such a gentle revolution that many users will hardly notice when it happens." [See also : http://www.techweb.com/tools/developers/112497xmlprimer.html.]

[November 24, 1997] "XML Gets A Push -- Vendors prepare tool announcements; language moves closer to standard," by Gregory Dalton. In Information Week Issue: 658 [Section: Intranets/Internet] (November 24, 1997), page 77. "Extensible markup language, an emerging data format for structuring information on the Web and creating specialized markup languages, is expected to get nudged forward by several events in the next few weeks. ArborText, Inso, and Microsoft are expected to announce XML tools in early December at SGL/ XML '97 in Washington. Also at the show, the World Wide Web Consortium is expected to put XML, which was introduced a year ago, on track to become a formal standard. Early next year, Fed Center, a Web-based purchasing catalog for the federal government that handles about 50,000 transactions a day, will begin to use XML, says Richard Graveley, an executive VP of Digital Commerce Corp. in Reston, Va., which operates the site." [extract]

[November 20, 1997] The November issue of the Seybold Report on Internet Publishing features a Special Report entitled "XML, Collaborative Tools Shine at Seybold San Francisco '97" (alternately: "'XML, Content Management Take Center Stage at SSF '97'"), and a subsumed article "XML Comes into the Limelight".

[November 20, 1997] "XML Documents Can Fit Object Oriented Applications [Objects & the Web]." By David Carlson. In Object Magazine 7/9 (November 1997) 24-26. "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a data interchange language for heterogeneous systems that is especially tuned for fast, online systems. XML is much more than a better approach for formatting Web documents: it is a representation language for describing the content and semantics of Web-based resources. [...] XML has many benefits for folks who want to improve structure, maintainability, searchability, presentation, and other aspects of document management." See: "XML and OO Applications."

[November 15 [18], 1997] "XML, What Will It Really Mean?" By Barry Schaeffer. Reprinted from Random Thoughts in ISI's 'Information Productivity Bookshelf' [local archive copy].

[November 14, 1997] "TEI and XML." By Steve DeRose. Presentation at TEI 10th Anniversary User Conference, November 14 - 16, 1997. Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. "This talk with discuss the background and design characteristics of XML, including its related parts XLL and XSL. It will also discuss some implications of XML for TEI users and for the TEI itself, and some common threads linking XML to the TEI, including many specific ways in which TEI work has influenced XML. The abstract for the presentation is available online: http://www.stg.brown.edu/webs/tei10/tei10.papers/derose.html.

[November 13, 1997] "What is XML and Why Should Humanists Care?" By C. M. Sperberg-McQueen (University of Illinois at Chicago). Paper presented at DRH '97: Digital Resources for the Humanities. A Conference held at St Annes College, Oxford, 14 - 17 September 1997. "The paper will outline briefly the structure and current status of the XML specifications, before illustrating XML usage with a series of concrete examples showing various aspects of XML markup and how it will work in practice. The examples should make clear what XML can do that existing HTML and SGML systems cannot do." This is one of several conference presentations which dealt with SGML/XML. [local archive copy]

[November 12, 1997] "XML: The New Wowser for Browsers. Effortless Data Exchange at Hand." By Dave Trowbridge [Hummingbird Communications]. Computer Technology Review Volume XVII, Number 10 (October 1997) 1, 10, 12, 14-15. [ISSN: 0278-9647] Conclusion: "Integrators expecting to capitalize on XML should get started now, for very soon the Web will be flooded with data accessible to XML tools, and customers will be clamoring for software that can help them capture, interpret and use it." [local archive copy]

[November 12, 1997] "Q&A: Lauren Wood, Chair, W3C DOM. W3C Spec Adds Structure to Web." [Interview with Lauren Wood,] by Nate Zelnick. WebWeek, Internet.Com November 10, 1997. See the main DOM entry for other references.

[November 12, 1997] Set of 23 slides from a presentation on XML, by Ingo Macherius (Ingo.Macherius@TU-Clausthal.de, Technical University of Clausthal). The slides were used in a presentation to the DFN (German Research) Information Forum, October 29, 1997. Available in Postscript or PowerPoint formats, in both German and English, the slides have been authorized for re-use under the GNU general public license. See: http://www.dfn.de/dfn/dfn-bt/vortraege/bt27/xml/; [local archive copy].

[November 11, 1997] "XML: A <PRICE> for that <PRODUCT>, an <ACCESSORY> for that <OUTFIT>." By Simon St. Laurent. In [Developer.Com] Tech Focus November 11, 1997. Extract: "XML promises to redefine the basic structure of the Web. HTML has been too limited to tackle large-scale document management and data interchange projects, while SGML has presented a steep learning curve, potentially endless complexity and a bureaucratic mindset. In bringing content-based structures to the Web, XML promises to create more flexible documents and a far more automated, more capable Web. At the core of this potential is XML's dramatic expansion of the number of available tags. Elements are no longer limited to the HTML set, inviting developers to create their own elements, attributes and entities for use in their documents. Industries that want a common set of tags can use the XML syntax to create standards for document interchange." [local archive copy]

[November 06 [19], 1997] "The New Internet EDI -- Group proposes wrapping the trading format in the Web's XML." By Matthew Friedman. Internet Week [Section: Electronic Commerce] Issue: 688 (November 03, 1997) 23, 27. Excerpt: "EDI relies on a standard messaging structure to maintain the supply chain between a company and its trading partners. Each industry has a different standard set of rules administered by the American National Standards Institute's X12 committee. The XML/EDI Group proposes using XML tags and attributes to incorporate those rules into Web-based documents so that EDI messages can be transmitted easily and cheaply across the Internet, thereby opening the supply chain to any trading partner equipped with an Internet connection and an XML-capable browser."

[November 06, 1997] "Web tool interacts with XML." By Andrea Dudrow. In MacWeek [Internet] 11/43 (November 05, 1997). "[Interaction] 1.2 Version 1.2 supports server-side Extensible Markup Language (XML), an emerging standard for defining and structuring Web content. The software allows users to define documents using XML tags, which it then converts to standard HTML, the company said.[. . .]With Interaction 1.2, users can embed XML in their Web documents by dragging XML tags from an Entity Manager palette; entities are storage units that make up XML documents. In addition to standard XML tags, the program features XML conditional entities, which Media Design In*Progress said will allow a Web developer to display custom messages to users."

[November 06, 1997] W3C's publication of the first public draft specification for the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, produced by the W3C Working Group on Synchronized Multimedia (SYMM). See the database entry.

[November 05, 1997] "Keeping Tabs Online. Doing Business on the Net is Hard Because the Underlying Software is So Dumb. XML Will Fix That." [Science and Society. Technology] By Michael Krantz. Time Magazine Volume 50, Number 120 (November 10, 1997) 81-82 [ISSN: 0040-781X]. Lead paragraph [from the online version]: "The Web is broken, but don't worry -- Marty Tenenbaum knows how to fix it. Tenenbaum is chairman of CommerceNet, a nonprofit organization based in Palo Alto, Calif., and devoted, unsurprisingly, to promoting commerce on the Net. And his silver bullet, an obscure design language called XML, is about to transform cyberspace." [local archive copy]

[November 04, 1997] "XML: Data the Way You Want It." By Michael Edwards (Developer Technology Engineer, Microsoft Corporation). Microsoft Site Builder Network Workshop, October 31, 1997. XML introduction and tutorial. [local archive copy]

[November 03, 1997] "XML format may fortify Web content." By Andrea Dudrow and Joanna Pearlstein. In MacWeek [News] Volume 11, Issue 42 (October 31, 1997).

[November 03 [06], 1997] "Turning documents into trees. DOM defines object-oriented API for accessing, modifying all of a Web page or XML document." By Eamonn Sullivan (PC Week Labs), PC Week Online November 03, 1997. Also: PC Week Magazine 14/46 (November 03, 1997) 41. [local archive copy]

[November 03 [06], 1997] "RDF aims to tame the Web. Resource Description Framework spec is poised to provide better Web publishing with metadata." By Eamonn Sullivan (PC Week Labs), PC Week Online November 03, 1997. Also: PC Week Magazine 14/46 (November 03, 1997) 41, 44. [local archive copy]

[November 01, 1997] "An Introduction to XSL." [Slides from] a presentation to the SGML UK Users' Group, by Henry S. Thompson (HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh). October 27, 1997. [local archive copy]

[October 31, 1997] "XML Enabled Mechanisms for Distributed Computing on the Web." By John Tigue (Senior Software Architect, DataChannel). Presented at Documation East, 1997. Conclusions: "(1) XML structures Web information to where Web native distributed computing is possible and existing DC architectures can migrate to the Web; (2) HTTP alone is sufficient to be the distributed computing network transport if there is an integrated client and server; (3) Firewalls can evolve to enable and control this architecture (4) With a few basic services the Web can be the lowest common denominator distributed computing environment for software which runs universally within the local network and across the Internet."

[October 31, 1997] Release of a new W3C technical 'NOTE': W3C Data Formats. NOTE-rdfarch [W3C NOTE 29-October-1997]. Author: Tim Berners-Lee and the W3C team. The document says: "W3C's new Extensible Markup Language (XML) provides the same function as SGML in a simpler and more powerful way. Future text markup from W3C will be built on XML rather than SGML. This may even apply to future versions of HTML, depending on technical work on back-compatiability and transition strategy." The abstract reads: "XML is becoming increasingly adopted as a common syntax for expressing structure in data. Now the resource Description Framework (RDF), a layer on top of XML, provides a common basis for expressing semantics. Applications which allow programs to combine data logically will be built using RDF (and therefore XML) and this will enhance the modularity and extensibility of the Web. This is essential to its rapid future growth, multiplying together the strengths of new, independently developed, applications."

[October 30, 1997] "Tools: Acronyms You Can't Live Without." By Jeffrey Veen. Wired News October 18, 1997, 8:50 AM PST. A survey of the XML-related acronyms and a summary of the early XML applications.

[October 29, 1997] "Characters, Encodings, and XML." By David C. Peterson. In <TAG> Volume 10, Number 10 (October 1997) 6-8. Discusses: "ISO 10646 and Unicode; Transmitting and Storing 16-bit Bit Patterns on 8-bit Byte-oriented Systems; 10646/Unicode and XML; Non-canonical Representations of Strings of UCS-2 Characters; UTF-8 and ASCII; Which Am I Getting: UCS-2, UTF-8, or Something Else?" On this topic, see also the excellent article written by François Chahuneau, "Unicode and Internationalization Issues in Document Management: A Global Solution to Local Problems," in The Gilbane Report on Open Information & Document Systems 5/4 (July/August 1997) 1-25; it also discusses Unicode and XML

[October 28, 1997] "XML: A Second Chance for Web Markup. HTML gave up a lot of SGML's power. XML brings back the power but keeps it simple." By Neil Randall. In PC Magazine Volume 16, Number 19 (November 4, 1997) 319-322; also: PC Magazine Online, November 4, 1997. Excerpt: "One of XML's greatest strengths is that it lets entire industries, academic disciplines, and professional organizations develop sets of DTDs that will standardize the presentation of information within those disciplines. To an extent this works against the much-ballyhooed universality of the Web and HTML, but if you work in a specialized area, you're probably aware of the need for systems that let you produce documents enabling you to communicate efficiently with your colleagues. Specialists often need to display formulas, hierarchies, mathematical and scientific notations, and other elements, all within well-defined parameters. SGML's DTD system lets you do so, and XML picks up on the DTD system without all the complexity."

[October 28, 1997] "XML Rigged For Commerce -- Start-up Poses App as W3C Standard." By Richard Karpinski. InternetWeek [Online] October 20, 1997, Issue: 686. "WebMethods Inc. has added new Extensible Markup Language (XML) capabilities to its Web Automation suite, an offering that has already been used by DHL Airways, the U.S. Postal Service, Texas Instruments and others to build Web-driven applications."

[October 28, 1997] "What's the Scoop on this XML Stuff?" By Christopher D. Ziener. In <TAG> Volume 10, Number 10 (October 1997) 1-3. The author reports on the Seybold San Francisco '97 conference and exposition, summarizing "how the SGML crowd felt about the Extensible Markup Language (XML). . ." Cf. the editorial in this issue of <TAG>, by Brian Travis: "'SGML: The Philosophy' Just Got Another Name."

[October 23, 1997] "XML/EDI." By Martin Bryan. Presented at the October 23rd 1997 meeting of the UK Chapter of the International SGML Users' Group. Note the sample forms.

[October 23, 1997] "XML Offers Standard Way Of Extending HTML -- Extensible Markup Language defines a class of data object for Web documents." By Don Kiely. InformationWeek [Online] Issue 652 (October 13, 1997). Excerpt: "Microsoft so far has been the most aggressive adopter of the technology, but Sun and Netscape are firmly behind XML as well. With the kind of support it's getting, the first unified, nonproprietary attempt to overcome HTML's limitations without simply adding more tags to the HTML spec will soon be widely adopted on the Web."

[October 23, 1997] "Short Take: WIDL submitted to W3C as standard." By Tim Clark. CNET News.com, October 13, 1997, 2:15 p.m. PT. See the main WIDL entry.

[October 20, 1997] "Dr. GUI does data -- with XML." Microsoft Column. October 20, 1997. ". . .A DTD is used to define a grammar for the tags and attributes. This syntax is going to be supported, but deprecated by Microsoft. It uses a special non-XML-based grammar [...] A schema is a much richer and more extensible way to describe the rules for the content of a document. It uses XML itself as a grammar..."

[October 17, 1997] "XML Ushers in Structured Web Searches." By Lisa Rein. Wired News October 17, 1997, 8:18am PDT. Lisa Rein talks to software engineers in the 'Internet search' business about using the structure of documents as providing a mechanism for more intelligent indexing and retrieval. Andy Breen (EarthWeb) and Sangam Pant (Lycos) say they are watching the developments closely; Andrew Layman (Microsoft) and Tim Bray (Textuality), both involved in the development of XML, are cautiously optimistic about the new possibilities for use of structured searches based upon markup in (Internet) XML documents.

[October 16 [17], 1997] "Speak my language. W3C founding member Murray Maloney discusses XML for meta data." [Internet] By Lynda Radosevich. InfoWorld Electric. Also published in InfoWorld Volume 19, Issue 41 (October 13, 1997) 73, 77. Summary: "Murray Maloney, technical director at Grif, a Paris-based company developing the Extensible Markup Language (XML), is a founding member of, and still serves on, several World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) working groups. In an interview with InfoWorld Senior Editor Lynda Radosevich, Maloney clears up a few questions about using XML."

[October 14 [17], 1997] Bill Gates on XML (use "find [XML]") - "Remarks by Bill Gates, Gartner Symposium, October 6, 1997." Excerpt: "XML is coming into the mix here as quite important as well. Internet Explorer 4.0 is the first browser to have XML support. If you want to send structured data, XML is the best format, particularly if you want to take the same data and present it in different ways. You ship it down in XML and then you use just the presentation level, the HTML, to pick the parts of the information you want to display. And so Office is going to support XML. HTML is the presentation format and XML is the data format. So I think people really should pay attention to XML. It's early days for XML, but some of the leading companies that did a lot with SGML documents are now really moving in there. And I did a demonstration last week at a conference with Arbor Text where they show how they've taken their tools now and moved them to support XML." [archive copy]

[October 14, 1997] "Learning Her Art in San Francisco: Report from Seybold '97." By Eileen Duncan. Touches on XML and XSL: "Crossing the X's. Much of the buzz at Seybold San Francisco 97 was about Extensible Markup Language (XML)..."

[October 10, 1997] "W3C Debuts Draft of RDF." In The Bulletin: Seybold News & Views on Electronic Publishing Volume 3, Number 1 (October 8, 1997). The article explains how RDF works, and assesses the likely impact on Internet publishing.

[October 10, 1997] On XML as an Internet hot topic: "XML Wins." By Lisa Rein, with quotes from Steven J. DeRose (Inso) and Mike McEvoy (ArborText). In: Wired News October 9, 1997 3:03pm. The news article claims: "Despite the allure of the whiz-bang, high-tech publishing systems at last week's Seybold conference, developments in XML and Web fonts took center stage."

[October 08, 1997] "Building XML Parsers for Microsoft's IE4." By Jean Paoli, David Schach, Chris Lovett, Andrew Layman, and Istvan Cseri. Prepublication (excerpted) article from XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques, edited by Dan Connolly. The abstract: "Microsoft cofounded the XML working group at the W3C in July 96 and actively participated in the definition of the standard. This article describes why Microsoft implemented its first XML application and how it led to the development of two XML parsers shipping in Internet Explorer 4.0, one written in C++ and the other in Java. We describe the importance of designing an object model API and our vision of XML as a universal, open data format for the Internet." See the online version of the article from O'Reilly, and the main bibliography entry for the volume (published as Volume 2, Issue 4 of The World Wide Web Journal). [local archive copy] An the online table of contents for the volume is also avaliable, [local archive copy]. See the notes document on the Java XML parser from Microsoft.

[October 07, 1997] Feature article on ChannelManager, the XML-based multichannel "push" technlogy from DataChannel. "The Data-Driven Desktop: DataChannel Pushes XML." By Liora Alschuler. In The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing 2/2 (October 1997) 1, 9-14. The author provides a detailed description and analysis of DataChannel's ChannelManager application. The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing calls DataChannel "the first commercial end-user product to do something interesting with the Web's new standard [XML] for open information." Excerpt: "The data is the desktop. ChannelManager not only 'pushes' the content, it shapes the user interface, and behind the scenes, it is XML metadata that is pulling the strings. . . DataChannel is interesting as an early implementor of XML, a standard that should substantively change the art of publishing on the Internet. Document markup may be used for more than just formatting, and right now Web developers are just starting to latch onto structured markup as a handle for controlling the flow of information. . . To see adoption of XML this early for this purpose confirms that the rewrite of SGML is meeting one of the objectives of the XML project, namely, to put the rules of SGML structured markup into a form that speaks to mainstream programmers." See also the full text in the online version of the article; or the DataChannel Web server for other information.

[October 07, 1997] A WiredNews article takes notice of XML's high visibility at Seybold San Francisco, claiming: "Developers can start getting excited, now that Extensible Markup Language tools are finally beginning to emerge..." Summary: "Last week at Seybold, XML finally got some long-deserved respect. The big boys were talking about it, and there are now products that will allow developers to really sink their teeth into it. In his keynote, Sun's John Gage predicted that the Extensible Markup Language will be the glue that will integrate electronic data interchange, databases, and even operating systems, making the computer itself 'an extensible linked document and database'." See "XML Rules. Any Questions?" by Lisa Rein. WiredNews 6.Oct.97.PDT 5:02am.

[October 06, 1997] "XML for Managers. Evaluating SGML vs. XML from a Manager's Perspective." ArborText white paper. Summary: "This white paper separates the hype of XML from its reality in order to provide answers to business-critical questions such as: (1) "Why doesn't HTML or SGML meet my needs for Web delivery?" (2) "How is XML easier than SGML?" (3) "When should I choose XML instead of SGML?" (4) "When I chose to use SGML, did I make a mistake?"

[October 06, 1997] "Beyond HTML: XML and Automated Web Processing." By Tim Bray (co-editor, XML). View Source Magazine 1/17 (September 15, 1997). "XML, the Extensible Markup Language, designed under the auspices of the W3C web standards-body, goes beyond HTML and allows you to define your own customized markup language. . . In this article, Tim Bray, co-editor of the W3C XML specification, provides a technical introduction to the language, demonstrating why it's extensible, easy-to-use, and guaranteed not to break software that uses it. " See the online version; [archive copy]

[October 02, 1997] "SGML gains recognition, popularity in XML subset: Standards focus of session." By Erik Sherman. MacWeek Online September 30, 1997. The author elaborates on the significance of "SGML/XML Knowledge Day" at the Seybold Conference, with supportive comments from Frank Gilbane (CAP Ventures) and Robin Tomlin (SGML Open). [archive copy]

[October 01, 1997] "Print Meets Web with Emerging Technologies [Editorial system for Web publishing]," by Lynda Radosevich and Jeff Walsh. InfoWorld 19/39 (September 29, 1997) 10. The article discusses XML products which support a collaborative environment for Web editing and publishing. Microsoft's plans are discussed, as are XML products from ArborText (ADEPT 7) and DataChannel. Summary: "At the Seybold Publishing '97 conference in San Francisco this week, new products will feature collaborative-authoring capabilities and Java client enhancements that improve document display. . . Perhaps most significant will be products supporting the Extensible Markup Language (XML), which enables developers to create meta-data tags needed to display custom views and create custom publications." See also the online version,'Posted at 5:39 PM PT, September 26, 1997' [archive copy].

[October 01, 1997] Norman Walsh, "An Introduction to XML." Walsh supplies an "introduction to XML with an eye towards guiding the reader to appropriate sections of the XML specification when greater technical detail is desired. This introduction is geared towards a reader with some HTML or SGML experience, although that experience is not absolutely necessary. The XML Link and XML Style specifications are also briefly outlined."

[October 01, 1997] Inso's announcement for XML support in Inso's DynaBase 3.0. See the press release of September 29, 1997: "Inso Announces DynaBase 3.0, a New Version of the Leading Web Publishing System for Teams Developing and Managing Dynamic Web Sites. 3.0 to Include Java-based Client, Full XML Support, Enhanced Security, New Workgroup and Personal Pack Offerings, and Support for Microsoft's IIS 4.0. . . In Version 3.0, Inso has added full support for native XML components. XML content management capabilities in DynaBase include the ability to import, validate, and store XML components, as well as support for indexing, version control, and edition management of XML content. DynaBase's XML dynamic publishing capabilities include XML component serving through the DynaBase Server Plug-in, XML tag-level scripting, and XML tag-level search and retrieval."

[October 01, 1997] ArborText's announcement for the availability of ADEPT 7, a new release of the company's SGML-based editing and publishing software which now features Java and XML support. According to the press release, "...ADEPT 7 reads and writes native, non-proprietary XML and can automatically convert documents between XML and SGML." [local archive copy]

[October 01, 1997] Announcement from DataChannel for the integration of XML-based "push channel" authoring capability into Microsoft Word. "DataChannel's XML engine generates an XML file automatically when the user clicks the 'Publish to Channel' 'Save As' menu item within Word." [press release, [archive copy]

[October 01 [07], 1997] Announcement for XML support in Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. According to a press release, Microsoft, ArborText and The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition teamed up [today at Seybold SF '97] to show the XML support available in Internet Explorer 4.0. In a keynote demonstration, actual data from The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, delivered using ArborText's ADEPT Editor software, was shown on Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0. [local archive copy]. See also some postings which answer questions about the nature of the XML support in MSIE 4.X.

[October 01, 1997] Texcel has announced upcoming support for XML in its Texcel Information Manager product, a leading SGML-based system for managing intelligent documents. See "Texcel Announces Upcoming Support for XML in its Texcel Information Manager Document Management System"

[October 01, 1997] "The XML Revolution." By Dan Connolly. [W3C XML Activity Lead.] "XML is intended to span this wide spectrum of application, and it has become a strategic technology in W3C, where members are sharing resources to compliment HTML with XML-based technologies. XML, like the Internet and the Web, is designed to facilitate a marketplace of competing companies, innovative individuals, and organizations of all sizes in between. W3C is a consortium of 270+ member organizations committed to the growth of this marketplace, ensuring interoperability and smooth evolution. XML by itself is just a simple text format; but together with all the ways it's being used to share structured information, it's a revolution that promises to make the Web a whole lot smarter."

[September 30, 1997] "XML Finds Boosters in Electronic Commerce," by Susan Moran. WebWeek September 22, 1997. Lead sentence: "It may not be as sexy as streaming video or as controversial as encryption technology, but its proponents say XML is about to become the 'killer app' that unlocks the Web's potential for electronic commerce."

[September 23, 1997] Press Release: "SGML Open Launches InterX.org Initiative in Support of XML." See the InterX.org entry.

[September 23, 1997] Mark Walter, Editor, Seybold Report on Internet Publishing: "Microsoft, Inso, ArborText Propose New Style Sheet Language." [News from the Front, September 16, 1997]. See the Seybold WWW server. Further details on the XSL specification and its ramifications will be published in the October issue of the Seybold Report on Internet Publishing.

[September 23, 1997] "WIDL: Application Integration with XML." By Charles Allen (charles@webMethods.com). "The Web Interface Definition Language (WIDL) is an application of the Xtensible Markup Language (XML) which allows the resources of the World Wide Web to be described as functional interfaces that can be accessed by remote systems over standard Web protocols." ["Pre-copyedited"/draft] online version of the article to be published in XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques, = World Wide Web Journal: Volume 2, Issue 4 (Autumn 1997). [local archive copy, text only]

[September 23, 1997] "Capturing the State of Distributed Systems with XML." By Rohit Khare and Adam Rifkin. ["Pre-copyedited"/draft] online version of the article to be published in XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques, = World Wide Web Journal: Volume 2, Issue 4 (Autumn 1997). "Just as previous generations of distributed system architectures emphasized relational databases or object-request brokers, the Web generation has good reason to adopt XML as its common archiving tool, because XML's sheer generic power has value in knowledge representation across time, space, and communities." [archive copy, text only]

[September 23, 1997] "The Evolution of Web Documents: The Ascent of XML." By Dan Connolly, Rohit Khare, and Adam Rifkin. ["Pre-copyedited"/draft] online version of the article to be published in XML: Principles, Tools, and Techniques, = World Wide Web Journal: Volume 2, Issue 4 (Autumn 1997). "In this article, we trace the history and evolution of Web data formats, culminating in XML. We evaluate the relationship of XML, HTML, and SGML, and discuss the impact of XML on the evolution of the Web." [archive copy, text only]

[September 18 [19], 1997] "Allaire Introduces Online Exchange for Cold Fusion Custom Tags. Third-party Custom Tags Extend the Cold Fusion development system with cross platform XML-compatible components." See the press release, September 15, 1997. Or: the Allaire The Tag Gallery. The database entry has other information and links.

[September 18, 1997] Superb tutorial article on Unicode, for XML/SGML developers: "Unicode and Internationalization Issues in Document Management: A Global Solution to Local Problems," by François Chahuneau, general manager of AIS/Berger-Levrault. The Gilbane Report Volume 5, Number 4 (July/August 1997) 1-25. See the bibliographic entry for other details.

[September 16, 1997] "XML Leaders Push Forward at Montreal Meeting. No Earth-shattering Surprises, but Solid Progress." Report on the "XML Developers' Day," by Tim Bray. In: The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing 2/1 (September 1997) 3-4. XML Dev Day was a meeting of approximately seventy-five (75) developers who came together after the 1997 International Conference on the Application of HyTime. The article discusses in particular: (1) Bitstream's NuDoc formatting facility, which now handles XML; (2) XML support by CommerceNet (electronic commerce consortium); and (3) progress in the development of authoring tools for XML (ArborText, Grif).

[September 16, 1997] "OSD Paves Way for Network-based Distribution," by Eamonn Sullivan (PC Week Labs). In PCWeek Online, "September 17, 1997." Noted: "OSD is the latest markup language to be created using XML (Extensible Markup Language). It's also a very simple language, described using XML in just 31 lines and containing just 15 elements or tags." See the entry for the Open Software Description Format (OSD).

[September 16 [18], 1997] "XML Initiatives Take Shape,", by Lynda Radosevich. In InfoWorld Electric, Posted at 4:28 PM PT, September 12, 1997. A longer version of the article is also published as: "XML Initiatives Takes Shape," InfoWorld 19/37 (September 15, 1997) 1, 24 [ISSN: 0199-6649]. Extract: "The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is rapidly gathering steam as major vendors, including Microsoft, Netscape, and Oracle, prepare to launch strategic XML-related initiatives. Although it is still being defined, XML is generating excitement because it lets developers create custom tag sets for building cross-platform applications across the Web that are data-neutral yet more structured than what is possible today using straight HTML."

[September 15, 1997] "EDI Revisited: XML Redefines E-commerce." [Standards Update] By Steven P. Klingler (President, Programming Solutions Inc.). Extract: "The combination of XML and EDI results in a standard framework and format, useful to describe different types of data. By utilizing EDI dictionaries, data can be searched, decoded, manipulated, and displayed consistently and correctly without the need to create special interfaces. At the same time, XML may encourage the use of electronic forms as a primary method of capturing and coding EDI information."

[September 11, 1997] Press release: "Microsoft, ArborText and Inso Submit XSL Proposal to W3C. Stylesheets for XML Are Compatible With Cascading Style Sheets, Go Beyond CSS to Handle Unique Characteristics of XML." See the main entry for Extensible Style Language. Alternatively: press release from ArborText, or local archive copy.

[September 03 [05], 1997] "Microsoft to Push XML as Alternative to Java", by Lynda Radosevich. In InfoWorld Electric, August 30, 1997, 6:27 AM PT. Also published as "XML à la Microsoft. Company Eyes a New Markup Format" in InfoWorld 19/35 (September 1, 1997) 1, 24. Extract: "In an effort to boost the Extensible Markup Language's role in transforming browsers into sophisticated front-end clients, Microsoft plans soon to propose an Extensible Markup Language (XML) style-sheet language to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), according to sources close to the development." [archive copy].

[September 4, 1997] A Bitstream Technology Brief introduces NuDoc. NuDoc is "a next generation document composition engine" in which a document is treated "as an object (in the object-oriented sense of the word)..." And: "In NuDoc, a document object is made of style, content, and page layout sub-objects. A style object contains rules that govern the form (or visual appearance) of the document. Content elements such as words, images, movies, etc. are organized into a tagged tree structure that represents the logical organization of the information (sections, sub-sections, etc.). The W3C's extensible markup language (XML) is the default content format. The result of composing the structured content against these models is called a page layout.

[August 29, 1997] Paul Grosso (ArborText), "XSL -- a proposed stylesheet for XML: Placing XSL into perspective." The paper discusses: "Where XSL fits into the XML specification effort, Where XSL fits into SGML and related technology, Relationship of XSL to DSSSL, Relationship of XSL to HTML and CSS," etc.

[August 4, 1997] Murata Makoto of Fuji Xerox Information Systems announced a Japanese translation of Jon Bosak's programmatic essay, "XML, Java, and the Future of the Web."

[August 04, 1997] Brief article on XML, from Jesse Berst, of AnchorDesk: "The Excitement Over XML." Wednesday, July 30, 1997. [archive copy, text only]

[August 04, 1997] "XML: A return to traditional standards might save the day," by Darcy DiNucci (darcy@tothepoint.com). In MacWeek Online 11/29 (July 23, 1997). [archive copy, text only]

[August 04 [15], 1997] Draft article on XML by Adam Rifkin (California Institute of Technology) and Rohit Khare (MCI Internet Architecture): "X Marks the Spot. eXtensible Markup Language opens the door to a motherlode of automated Web applications." The article is to "be published in IEEE Internet Computing, July/August 1997, and might be published in the Autumn 1997 issue of the World Wide Web Journal." [archive copy, August 4, 1997.] See now [August 15], the publication in IEEE Internet Computing as "XML: A Door to Automated Web Applications", Vol. 1, No. 4, July - August 1997. Available in PDF format, [local archive copy]. For the IEEE publication, See the the bibliographic entry.

[August 12, 1997] "The Emergence of the eXtensible Markup Language XML (eXtensible Markup Language)." Chapter 38 in HTML 4 Unleashed, By Rick Darnell, Mike Larson, Dmitry Kirsanov, et al. Sams.net Publishing. ISBN: 1-57521-299-4. This chapter from HTML 4 Unleashed, to be published in summer 1997, "contains a brief no-nonsense introduction into XML, explains the significance of logical markup, and surveys the most important XML advantages." URL: http://www.webreference.com/dlab/books/html/38-0.html. Contact: Dmitry Kirsanov.

[August 12, 1997] "XML Makes Web pages Smarter, Your Work Easier"[Intersights], by Eamonn Sullivan in PCWeek Online, August 11, 1997. [archive copy, text only. See the canonical copy if possible.]

[August 12, 1997] "XML Gains Foothold with DataChannel Viewer," by Michael Moeller, PC Week Online August 11, 1997. [archive copy,text only. See the canonical copy if possible.]

[August 15, 1997] "Introduction to XML,", by: Lars Marius Garshol. Translated from the original Norwegian version. [local archive copy, August 14, 1997]

[August 26, 1997] Jeffrey Veen, "XML: Metadata for the Rest of Us [Part 1]; XML: Roll Your Own Markup [Part 2]." Published in Wired News [Technology] July 8, 1997 and July 14, 1997. A two-part article on XML consisting of an interview with Tim Bray. Available in HTML format: Part 1 online, and Part 2 online. See the bibliographic entry for a summary. [part 1 archive copy], [part 2 archive copy]

[August 28, 1997] Article by Lynda Radosevich on the use of XML in medical informatics: "Health Care Uses XML for Records. Other Vertical Industry Groups also Expected to Cooperate to Customize XML." Published in InfoWorld Electric, August 25, 1997; see also in InfoWorld [ISSN: 0199-6649] 19/34 (August 25, 1997) 51-52. See the main entry for SGML Initiative in Health Care (HL7 Health Level-7 and SGML) for other information. See the bibliographic entry in the main database. [archive copy]

[August 6, 1997] Jeff Frentzen, "XML: Clarity for Web Developers, or Confusion?", PC Week 14/33 (August 4, 1997) 169. [The author counsels "caution" about XML in light of the "gush" coming from the enthusiatic SGML crowd that invented XML.]

[August 14, 1997] Elementary XML", by Robert Carter. Microsoft SiteBuilder Network, feature story. Posted August 14, 1997. To be archived September 15, 1997. [local archive copy, text only]

[August 25, 1997] "XML Prepares to Fight HTML for Universal Language Supremacy", by Shawn P. McCarthy. In Government Computer News August 25, 1997. "XML holds great promise for the Web's future because HTML -- even Version 4.0 -- isn't extensible. It's just not easy enough to integrate straight HTML documents into other programs and information systems." [archive copy]

[July 1997] Chrystal Software's announced support for XML in Astoria: "Chrystal Software believes that XML will become a significant enabling standard for mission-critical Web applications"; [archive copy]

[July 19, 1997] "XML to Extend Client Possibilities", by Lynda Radosevich and Ed Scannell. In InfoWorld Electric 'Posted at 5:16 AM PT, July 19, 1997.' Summary: "Although it's still making its way through the standards committees, the Extensible Markup Language (XML), scheduled to appear in products in 1998, is already shaping the future of the Web...." [local archive copy]

[July 20, 1997] "DataChannel Demonstrates Industry's First XML Viewer" - Progress of Next-Generation Web Language Furthered By Enabling Microsoft and Netscape Browsers (DataChannel Press release); [local archive copy]

"XML and SGML", by Charles Goldfarb. In International SGML Users' Group Newsletter 3/3 (July 1997) 10. See the main bibliographic entry for a summary.

"First XML Conference in Europe", by Pamela Gennusa. In International SGML Users' Group Newsletter 3/3 (July 1997) 11 - 13. See the main bibliographic entry for a summary.

"Scientific Publishing in the 21st Century - XML!", by Peter Murray-Rust. In International SGML Users' Group Newsletter 3/3 (July 1997) 14. See the main bibliographic entry for a summary.

[July 26, 1997] "XML: A simple, Standard Subset." Chapter 8 in The SGML FAQ Book: Understanding the Foundation of HTML and XML, by Steve DeRose. Dordrecht/Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. See the bibliographic entry for the book. Steve DeRose is Chief Scientist at Inso Electronic Publishing Solutions Providence, and a co-editor of XML: Extensible Markup Language (XML): Part 2. Linking

"XML Rescues the Web", by Richard Lander. July, 1997. [local archive copy]

[June 1997] "XML and style sheets promise to make the Web more accessible [Internet Services]." By Giovanni Flammia (MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, email flammia@sls.lcs.mit.edu). In IEEE Expert Intelligent Systems & Their Applications [formerly IEEE Expert] Vol. 12, No. 3 (May/June 1997) 98-99. A report on the emergence of XML, as evident in conference sessions at the Sixth World Wide Web Conference, held in Santa Clara, April 6-11, 1997. Available in HTML format or in PDF; [local archive copy in HTML, text only]

[June 1997] "Extensible Markup Language (XML)", by C. M. Sperberg-McQueen and Tim Bray. Presentation at ACH/ALLC '97. [archive copy]

[June 1997] Tim Bray, "XML: Moving Toward Richer, Smarter Web Pages". In Network World 14/25 (June 23, 1997).

[June 1997] "Handbook: XML,"by Tim Bray. Network World Fusion, [Overviews of intranet technologies], IntraNet, 6/23/97. [archive copy]

[June 1997] "Journal Publishers Explore XML," by Dianne Kennedy. In: <TAG>: The SGML Newsletter 10/6 (June 1997) 1, 9-10. The author summarizes the April 1997 tutorial for journal publishers sponsored by GCA, taught by her and Murray Maloney. The focus was upon the emerging XML standard. Kennedy reports a growing interest in SGML/XML among journal publishers, including those who are using ISO 12083 as a basis for enterprise DTDs. The article also addresses W3C math in XML.

[June 1997] "Authoring and Formatting XML Documents" - paper from Grif.

[May 12, 1997] "XML Spec May Transform The Web", by Karen Rodriguez. INTER@CTIVE WEEK May 12, 1997. [archive copy, text only]

[May 1997] "Grif Commits to XML Editing Tool," [article] in Seybold Report on Internet Publishing 1/9 (May 1997) 37. "...Grif has stepped forward as the first vendor to commit to developing an XML authoring tool. It will be receiving help from Cadmus, one of the largest U.S. suppliers of services to journal publishers." See the bibliographic entry.

[May 18, 1997]. XML is featured prominently as the cover story in Web Review for May 18, 1997. The four-part article entitled "The XML Files: Multidimensional Files that Go Beyond HTML" is authored by Web Review publiisher Dale Dougherty, also 'co-founder of O'Reilly & Associates, head of O'Reilly's Digital Media Group, and publisher and developer of Global Network Navigator (GNN).' Following an overview of XML -- excerpted from a longer document "XML, Java and the Future of the Web" by Jon Bosak (Sun Microsystems, also Chair of the W3C XML Working Group) -- the article includes the following sections:

• [May 1997] "Multidimensional Files: There's A Bright Future Beyond HTML" - Describes the more powerful XML model emerging for Web documents
• [May 1997] "Data Needs to Be Richer, Smarter", a RealAudio interview with Tim Bray (XML co-editor)
• [May 1997] "Authoring XML Documents", by Murray Maloney, W3C SGML-WG member and co-author of the new book SGML and the Web
• [May 1997] A Guide to XML Resources: XML at the W3C, Additional Documents of Interest, XML Tools

"XML: The New Markup Wave", by Richard Lander. May 01, 1997. Summary: "This report investigates the eXtensible Markup Language, which is a subset of the Standard Generalized Markup Language. The Standard Generalized Markup Language and the HyperText Markup Language are discussed and then used to introduce the eXtensible Markup Language. The power, limitations and current usage of each are used as points of comparison and to stress the need for a new standard. It is concluded that the eXtensible Markup Language will be the most flexible meta-language, will meet industry requirements if coupled with DSSSL and Java, and will become the basis of the World Wide Web." [mirror copy]; (RTF version)

[May 22, 1997.] "XML Is The Future Of HTML", by Jason Levitt. InformationWeek Online May 19, 1997. [mirror copy]

[May 23, 1997]. "Experts' Revolution. XML: a professional alternative to HTML," by Ingo Macherius. In iX-magazine [Online Edition], May 14, 1997. Summary: "An alternative to HTML is on the horizon and it should be taken seriously. Extensible Markup Language is being proposed by the W3 Consortium and could soon - at least on commercial sites - supersede HTML." Other URLs: Original version in German.

[April 07, 1997] Summary description of XML, by Jon Bosak.

[April 11, 1997] "The Web is Ruined and I Ruined It.", by David Siegel. Feature article on HTML/XML in Web Review; [archive copy, text only]; document source on FoRK-archive, [mirror copy]

[April 1997] Pamela Gennusa, "'The New Publishing Business Case: XML, SGML & the Internet'. First Conference on XML Attracts Attendees from North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim." In: International SGML Users' Group Newsletter 3/2 (April 1997) 2-9. A detailed report and summary. See the conference entry for other details.

[April 7, 1997] An article on XML in WebWeek 3/9 (April 7, 1997), by Liora Alschuler: Netscape's new disposition. Article title: "Netscape, On Second Thought, Warms to XML." [mirror copy, text only]

Liora Alschuler, "XML Shops for a Market, Finds Vendors. Netscape Turns Around After Momentum Builds in San Diego." In: The Seybold Report on Internet Publishing 1/8 (April 1997) 3-4. "The tide of support for the Extensible Markup Language (XML) is clearly rising. At a special XML conference held in San Diego last month [March 1997], a wave of vendors voiced their support, and a few weeks later Netscape, an early opponent, reversed its position and decided to actively 'investigate' implementation. In the meantime, several early implementations have appeared in the market."

(April 18, 1997) "CONFÉRENCE ANNUELLE DU WORLD WIDE WEB: Netscape reconnaît XML", by Cyril Dhénin, in Le Monde Informatique n718 - 18 avril 1997, [archive copy]. An English translation of the article is also available ["Netscape Acknowledges XML"], from Todd Freter (Todd.Freter@Eng.Sun.COM)

(April 14, 1997) "[XML] Markup Language Takes HTML to Task", by Michael Moeller, in PC Week 14/15 (April 14, 1997) 6. See also the published abstract in the bibliographic entry.

[April 1997] "Building Blocks. Turning the Web Into a Data Source,", by Leslie Marable. From Web Week, Volume 3, Issue 11, April 21, 1997. "The Web Interface Definition Language (WIDL) consists of six XML-compliant HTML extenders that define a universal schema for HTML documents based on the Document Object Model (DOM) as it is being defined by the World Wide Web Consortium." [local archive copy]

[April 1997] Dianne Kennedy, "The Mouse That Roared: The XML Conference 1997." In: <TAG>: The SGML Newsletter 10/4 (April 1997) 9-11. Compare the author's report available from the SGML Resource Center. See the conference entry for other details.

[April 28, 1997] "XML will take the Web to the next level. Labs explore enabling technologies of next-generation markup language", by Eamonn Sullivan. PCWEEK Online, April 28, 1997; [archive copy, text only]

"Overview: XML, HTML, and All That", by Jon Bosak, Sun Microsystems. Presented on April 11, 1997. Compares and contrasts SGML, HTML, and XML; DSSSL and/versus CSS as style languages. On the style language comparison: see the entry in the stylesheet section. [Archive copy .ZIP, or overview document text only]

[April 30, 1997] "XML: Adding Intelligence to Your Business-critical Documents", A White Paper from Grif; [mirror copy, text only]

[April 1997] XML Overview - From Microsoft, April 30, 1997; [archive copy]

[March 1997] Article in InfoWorld by Lynda Radosevich, "W3C Preps XML Despite Netscape's Snub." Text includes: "...[besides GCA] Other supporters of XML are Digital, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, JavaSoft, Microsoft, Novell, Spyglass, and Sun. But notably missing is an endorsement from Netscape, which stated that it believes the extensions [viz., the Net user's ability to create new tags for Web documents in a standardized manner] are not needed." See InfoWorld 19/9 (March 03, 1997): 43, or the online version of the document; [mirror copy, text only].

"XML, Java, and the future of the Web" in HTML format, by Jon Bosak, Sun Microsystems. Revised March 03, 1997. [mirror copy]. A Postcript version is also available. See the main directory for other file formats.

[March 1997] "The Case for XML," by Dianne Kennedy, SGML Resource Center. [local archive copy]

[March 1997] Press release from Murray Maloney, Technical Director of SoftQuad Inc., announcing support for XML by SoftQuad and other Web Technology Leaders (Microsoft, Sun, NCSA and Dow Jones Interactive Publishing). See also the HTML version of the press release; [mirror copy]. (March 11, 1997)

[March 1997] Article on XML by John Gartner: "HTML Alternative Standard Gets Backers." In: TechWire Tuesday, March 18, 1997 9:00 AM EST. However, note inaccuracies corrected by Jean Paoli of Microsoft. [mirror copy, text only]

Article by Liora Alschuler: "XML Could Sidestep HTML Split," in WebWeek [The Newspaper of Web Technology and Business Strategy] 3/7 (March 24, 1997); see summary in the bibliographic entry; [mirror copy]

Article on XML by J. David Becke in ec.com ('The Magazine for Electronic Commerce Management') 3/2 (February 1997): 56, "X 'Marks Up' the Spot...XML" [ISSN: 1084-6328]

[February 28, 1997] Article by Clarisse Burger [Standards et technologies, Internet] "XML: un pas en avant pour l'édition sur le Web!" in Le Monde Informatique, Numéro 711 du 28 février; [mirror copy, text only]

"XML - Questions and Answers," by Jon Bosak. In International SGML Users' Group Newsletter 3/1 (January 1997) 6-7. A short but very fine article. Available online from the ISUG Web site.

"Netscape Replies to XML [not interested now, thank you!]." See Seybold Report on Internet Publishing 1/5 (January 1997): 2. See the abstract in the bibliographic entry for details on Netscape's [January 1997] position.

[January 28, 1997] Why XML is Important, by Len Bullard (Lockheed Martin)

Online feature article covering XML, by Mark Walter, in Seybold Report on Internet Publishing 1/4 (December 1996): 3-5. Article title: "W3C Publishes Draft of Simplified SGML. At Last a Sensible Way to Extend HTML." Also available in PDF format.

Article on XML in The Bulletin: Seybold News and Views on Electronic Publishing, Volume 2, No. 7 (November 20, 1996): "W3C Debutes Draft of Simplified SGML"

"W3C Publishes Draft of Simplified SGML. XML Allows User-definable Tags". Article in Seybold Report on Publishing Systems 26/6 (November 30, 1996): 41 [bibliographic entry]

[November 1996] Press release from AIS/Berger-Levrault that AIS Software will support XML in its Balise software; [mirror copy]

[November 22, 1996] A comparison of XML and HTML, by Jon Bosak. A posting to Usenet Newsgroup 'comp.infosystems.www.misc'.