Hot off of Atom becoming an official standard Tim Bray has posted two great pieces over at Ongoing, both worth your time. Don’t Invent XML Languages a Why Not To on creating new standards, and a followup, in cases where you really have to, On XML Language Design which hints on a few technical and non-technical gotchas with the process.
To the Managers Out There · The next time one of your technical superstars comes into the room and says “We gotta design an XML vocabulary for Xâ€, make them prove they can’t do it with one of the Big Five. And if they can prove it, sigh deeply and budget a couple of years’ delay, and a few thousand more engineering hours.
