First XML Conference in Europe: Introduction

By Pamela Gennusa, Database Publishing Limited, Swindon, United Kingdom

In London, on 22 April 1997, Technology Appraisals Limited hosted XML Ready for Prime Time?, the first XML conference to take place in Europe. The conference was moderated by Tim Bray, Textuality Inc., Canada, who also led tutorials before and after the conference.

In the previous issue, we reported on GCA's XML conference that took place in the US in March. There were stark contrasts between these two conferences, each emphasizing an important aspect of implementing XML. While the GCA's conference looked at how having XML changed the business case for implementing SGML, the Technology Appraisals conference had a more technical focus. It looked at some of the more technical issues facing Internet/intranet implementors and how XML can be used to solve many of the shortcomings of using the World-Wide Web for content delivery. From the business case point of view, there are compelling reasons to want content identification on the Web, not least to support more client-side processing. The business reasons for wanting such support on the Web were covered eloquently at the GCA conference.

At the business case level, therefore, we can say:

We need content identification and management on the web
Content identification and management are available through the use of SGML
There is a good business case to make SGML work on the Web
SGML on the Web is called XML

Having realized and accepted such a business requirement, we must look at the technical side. Here, some questions go begging for answers:

Why does XML need to be different than SGML to work on the Web?
Why can't we use SGML on the Web?

The speakers at this conference helped the audience to understand the answers to these questions.

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