Comments on: Happy 10th Birthday, XML

By: Zach

Zach — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 18:41:33 +0000

@Porren

I completely agree with you that “Instead of tossing this value out with every latest trend in IT, mature approaches seek to extract knowledge from existing systems and reuse and modernise them” and that code is indeed an asset, but that is exactly why I agree with this quote.

I think the argument here is that the beauty of XML is indeed the value it can bring over time. In the systems of today, unlike Cobol, XML is highly adaptable which gives it a highly increased longevity.

What the quote argues is that XML will help code have a significantly longer shelf-life. So yeah, we’re coming up on COBOL’s big 50th… it had a great life, but I definitely see XML being a more influential language in the long run.

By: Ba-Nanneh

Ba-Nanneh — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:32:45 +0000

Wade Roush made a serious error quoting Ogbuji – He did not in fact state this in his article. I agree it is a dumb thing to say, but Ogbuji didn’t say it himself. He merely said that other people had said that… Why are we quoting two-year old articles on the IBM website anyway…? Boo for Wade Roush!

By: Porren

Porren — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:14:33 +0000

Ogbuji’s unfortunate statement reflects an immature perspective on software development with which I disagree strongly. Code, regardless of the language it was written in, that is in production running a business constitutes value – on your balance sheet, assets are assets and the longer you can use them the more value it brings. Instead of tossing this value out with every latest trend in IT, mature approaches seek to extract knowledge from existing systems and reuse and modernise them, ideally incrementally, whenever possible. You cannot approach enterprise systems with the same consumerist mentality as you would look at the latest mobile devices you put in your pocket. In short, I say boo and drivel to Ogbuji’s statement that extracting value from assets is an “extraordinary waste”.