Altogether, these topics made up nearly one third of the sessions at the conference. From the opening keynote of the first day to the last topic of discussion at an 11 p.m. BOF, XML has made its presence felt. Jon Bosak, the father of XML, was part of a panel with Sun Fellow and Vice President James Gosling and Sun CTO George Papadopoulos, moderated by Sun Chief Science Officer John Gage. XML is everywhere, and growing. While the excitement of XML is certainly merited, it has tended to make the conference floor, as well as the schedule of sessions, look a little bit like a printing of assembly code.
Acronyms replace words, and then acronyms are developed to represent collections of acronyms.
One poor soul was seen wandering the exhibit hall, bumping into people as he nervously alternated between staring in wonder and trying to use his English-acronym dictionary, to no avail. If the speaker were to fall and tear an ACL and need an MRI, the session would be complete. We have a sneaking suspicion that any presentation with XML in the title was put on the fast track to acceptance this year. Yet another indicator of the popularity of XML is the sheer interest in the technology in written form, and how those publications are selling like hotcakes. But wouldn't you know, the 500 copies sold out in only two days.