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XML and Web Services In The News - 07 July 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML Daily Newslink is sponsored by Innodata Isogen
HEADLINES:
IESG Approves Publication of 'Matching of Language Tags'
Addison Phillips and Mark Davis (eds), Approved for IETF RFC
Martin Duerst (Aoyama Gakuin University), co-chair of IETF's Language
Tag Registry Update (LTRU) Working Group, announced that the IESG has
approved version 15 of the "Matching of Language Tags" Internet Draft
for publication. This document, together with version 14 of the
companion "Tags for Identifying Languages" (now in RFC Ed Queue) will
be published as an RFC and will replace RFC 3066 ("Tags for the
Identification of Languages"), which replaced RFC 1766. Currently,
RFC 3066 or its successor is referenced normatively by XML 1.1 and
other markup standards for constructing language identification tags.
"Knowledge about the particular language used by some piece of
information content might be useful or even required by some types
of processing; for example spell-checking, computer-synthesized
speech, Braille transcription, or high-quality print renderings. One
means of indicating the language used is by labeling the information
content with an identifier or 'tag'. The IETF document 'Tags for
Identifying Languages' describes the structure, content, construction,
and semantics of language tags for use in cases where it is desirable
to indicate the language used in an information object. It also
describes how to register values for use in language tags and the
creation of user defined extensions for private interchange. The
document 'Matching of Language Tags: defines a syntax (called a
language range) for specifying items in the user's list of language
preferences (called a language priority list), as well as several
schemes for selecting or filtering sets of language tags by comparing
the language tags to the user's preferences. Applications, protocols,
or specifications will have varying needs and requirements that
affect the choice of a suitable matching scheme. It describes: how
to indicate a user's preferences using language ranges; three schemes
for matching these ranges to a set of language tags; and the various
practical considerations that apply to implementing and using these
schemes."
See also: Language Identifiers
Don't Break the Link: Avoid Four Costly Pitfalls in Linking and Reuse
Brandon Jockman, Innodata Isogen White Paper
Link management plays a vital role in establishing the overall quality
of an XML-based system. Too often, organizations underestimate the
significance of this key requirement -- causing systems to fall short
in providing the full suite of link management services required by
modern enterprises. The global transition of documents into XML prompts
project requirements related to authoring, singlesource/ multiple-output
publication, content management and workflow. Linking traditionally
refers to a simple point-to-point link, such as a hyperlink from one
Web page to another or a navigable link between two pages in a PDF
document. The XML Linking Language (XLink) W3C specification1 provides
an XML-based linking syntax for traditional links. However, the
combination of its cumbersome authoring syntax and general lack of tool
support prevents it from being the most commonly used linking syntax.
Other common approaches to XML linking include ID/IDREF, W3C Schema's
key/keyref, or custom links. They have limitations as well. Some common
XML flavors, such as XHTML and DocBook define their own link elements.
To support these custom linking syntaxes, some tools provide configurable
link definition systems where custom link elements can be defined along
with the type of link. However, these non-standard links may not be
portable between tools. Unless adequate analysis and preparation takes
place, simple linking can be anything but simple in a complex system.
Linking can also include other types of referencing. This type of
linking is often called use-by-reference or reuse. In a reuse link, the
point-to-point link relationship has a modifier specifying that content
from the target location should be pulled into the source location at
a given point in time. The most complete XML-based reuse mechanism is
defined by the XML Inclusions (XInclude) W3C specification.
See also: TBL's 1998 Cool URIs Don't Change
Microsoft Office to Support ODF: The Q&A
Stephen O'Grady, Blog
I've got some early commentary on the news that Microsoft has announced
support for the Open Document Format. This analysis was made possible
by the folks from Microsoft who were good enough to brief us on this
news last week. With the advance notice, I've had both the opportunity
to ask some questions as well as think on the answers I received. The
news is this: Microsoft is announcing support, via a non-bundled, third
party application, for the ISO standard Open Document Format (ODF). To
make things more interesting, the third party application is an open
source project, governed by the BSD license and hosted externally at
SourceForge. It's Microsoft's contention that they are still not seeing
any notable traction or interest for ODF from their enterprise clients,
but events within the public sector (e.g. in Belgium, Denmark, France,
etc) have led to ODF being an RFP type requirement for many governmental
bodies. The achievement of an ISO standard applies here as well, because
Microsoft believes that governments that have even a single citizen
exchanging documents in ODF would be obligated to serve that citizen
given the standardization. ODF support, therefore, became important
for one of their larger customer bases, making this announcement a very
logical decision. A fait accompli, almost. Having reached the conclusion
that ODF is not going away, Microsoft likely felt obliged to support it
to guarantee access to the widest possible market.
See also: announcement and references
PESC Announces Approval of XML High School Transcript Standard
Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council, Announcement
The Board of Directors and Steering Committee of the Postsecondary
Electronic Standards Council (PESC) approved the release of the XML
High School Transcript Standard as a PESC Member-Approved National
Education Community Standard. This effort marks a significant
milestone and achievement for the education community, the
Standardization of Postsecondary Education Electronic Data Exchange
(SPEEDE) Committee of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars
and Admissions Officers (AACRA), and for PESC. The High School
Transcript is a specification designed for use by secondary and
postsecondary educational institutions, state agencies, and software
vendors to communicate current and historical student academic records.
The High School Transcript contains personal history and identifying
information about the student, the current academic status, dates of
attendance, courses completed with grades earned, diplomas and
certificates awarded, and selected test scores. The High School
Transcript is programmed in Extensible Markup Language (XML), the
widely adopted programming language that has enabled safe and reliable,
real-time messaging and data exchange, and is accompanied by a
comprehensive Implementation Guide that facilitates faster, more
efficient programming.
See also: PESC references
W3C Releases Semantic Annotations for WSDL Working Draft
Joel Farrell and Holger Lausen (eds), SAWSDL Working Group WD
W3C's Semantic Annotations for Web Services Description Language
(SAWSDL) Working Group has released a First Public Working Draft for
"Semantic Annotations for WSDL". The objective of the Semantic
Annotations for WSDL Working Group is to develop a mechanism to enable
annotation of Web services descriptions. This mechanism will take
advantage of the WSDL 2.0 extension mechanisms to build a simple and
generic support for semantics in Web services. The Working Draft
"Semantic Annotations for WSDL" defines how to add semantic annotations
to WSDL 2.0 components. The specification defines extension attributes
that can be applied to both WSDL elements and XML Schema elements to
annotate input and output messages defined in a WSDL 2.0 interface.
Semantic annotations are references from an element within a WSDL or
XML Schema document to a concept in an ontology. This specification
defines annotation mechanisms for relating WSDL inputs and outputs to
concepts defined in an outside ontology. Similarly, it defines how to
annotate WSDL operations and how to categorize WSDL interfaces. Further,
it defines an annotation mechanism for specifying the structural
mapping of XML Schema types to and from an ontology. The annotation
mechanism is independent of the ontology expression language and this
specification requires no particular ontology language.
See also: W3C Web Services Activity
OMG Adopts Systems Modeling Language
Darryl K. Taft, eWEEK
The Object Management Group has announced the adoption of the OMG
Systems Modeling Language as a standard. The Needham, Mass.-based OMG
and the International Council on Systems Engineering worked together
to extend the OMG's UML (Unified Modeling Language) specification to
come up with SysML, said Richard Soley, chairman and CEO of the OMG.
SysML is a general-purpose graphical modeling language for specifying,
analyzing, designing and verifying complex systems that may include
hardware, software, information, personnel, procedures and facilities.
As a subset of UML 2.0, SysML provides systems engineers with graphical
representation and semantic foundation for system requirements. Annex D
of the specification ('Model Interchange') describes several methods
for exchanging SysML models between tools. The first method discussed
is XML Metadata Interchange (XMI), which is the preferred method for
exchanging models between UML-based tools. The second approach
describes the use of ISO 10303-233 Application Protocol: Systems
engineering and design (AP233), which is one of the series of STEP
(Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data) neutral data schemas
for representing engineering data. Other model interchange approaches
are possible, but the ones described in this annex are expected to be
the primary ones supported by SysML.
See also: the specification
Genuitec MyEclipse 5.0 Links
Paul Krill, InfoWorld
Genuitec will link the rival NetBeans and Eclipse open source
technologies in a preview release of the MyEclipse 5.0 environment for
enterprise and Web application development being unveiled on 2006-07-07.
Built on top of the Eclipse software development kit, the preview
version is dubbed a Milestone 2 release. It will have most of the new
functionality to be featured in the general release of MyEclipse 5.0,
due in August. MyEclipse 5.0 offers users multiple ways to build Web
applications, with support for technologies such as AJAX (Asynchronous
JavaScript and XML), JavaServer Pages, and Struts. A highlight of
version 5.0 is inclusion of Matisse4MyEclipse, an interface builder
based on the NetBeans Matisse technology. Also in version 5.0 is a
framework for rapidly developing Web services through a series of
wizards and interfaces. The framework is based on the XFire SOAP
framework. AJAX extensions in the product enable developers to more
easily build rich, dynamic Web applications, Genuitec said. Also, the
Struts 1.2.X framework, with Tiles technology, is supported in version
5.0. Tiles is a component of Struts for building user interfaces.
Integration with the Eclipse Web Tools Platform includes support of
the "Facets" concept, which involves relating entities based on
relationships.
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