(2004-11-18) Bosworth Worse Is Better

Adam Bosworth makes the Worse Is Better pitch. Today, I listen to the same people at the same companies say that XML over HTTP (Web Services, ReST) can never succeed because it is so primitive. Only with SOAP and SCHEMA and so on can it succeed. But the real magic in XML is that it is self-describing. The RDF guys never got this because they were looking for something that has never been delivered, namely universal truth. Saying that XML couldn't succeed because the semantics weren't known is like saying that Relational Data Base-s couldn't succeed because the semantics weren't known or text Search Engine-s cannot succeed for the same reason.