December 21, 2004

Jean Paoli speaks out on XML and the future

Paoli: Information correlation, reasoning next step for XML

Now that XML is successfully employed on the front end as well, what's next?
Paoli: XML is at the front end. Adobe, OpenOffice, they're adding XML to the front end as well. The technology is here, that's the fun part of this for me. This is the tip of the iceberg because imagine a time when millions of documents are stored and archived in XML. Project yourself in a few years, millions of documents created by humans, stored in databases. For IT it's data, for users, it's documents. Then, we'll have millions of new opportunities to start correlating the information, think about reasoning on top of it and managing it.
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Recently [and in many other past discussions] on XSL-List there was a discussion in regards to the grouping of XML data and the best methods to use when doing this. Posts regarding specific tests on two seperate grouping methods can be found here. While it was determined that for grouping problems with deep recursive implications and grouping categories the tried and true Meunchian Method was, again, at the top of the performance scale. But some ideas were presented in regards to the convergence of multiple data sources, an area that hasn't been tested to any level of assuredness as to which method might be best.

I have a very strong feeling that in the not to distant future the world of searching, sorting, grouping, extracting, and weaving together the new found data on the WorldLiveWeb and further seperating this data into that of inherent value and that in which is *currently* of absolutely no value to the consumers of instant information we have become. This is something that I believe will more than likely turn into a near commodity market and those companies that provide the best-of-breed Data-Mining services will have the world eating from their hands and of course, will be the source of extreme wealth, popularity, and in some ways power with very controlling implications. Lets hope that doenst happen!

In the mean time I wonder who or what technologies will prove to be the source of this best-of-breed in this category. I have my own feelings as to the answer to this question and in fact have been working in this exact area of study for nearly a year now. Not for the reason of becoming the next best thing to Google or MSN search (In my opinion the only real competitors in this market... Sorry Yahoo!) but from the standpoint of having a complete infatuation with the concepts involved with weaving together data from sources that have nothing in common in regards to their sources (meaning schemas that in many ways have little, if anything, in common) and bring them together in ways that will help us do real-time searches for people interested in the same thing someone else is searching for as a matter of the same interest at that exact same moment... e.g. You're on a particular chapter in a really exciting book and you want to see if there is anybody out there on the WorldLiveWeb who is in that exact spot and wants to talk about it as badly as you do... The moment we have reached that level of capability, where the publishing, weaving, and subsequent searching of that data for things in which have a shelf life of 5-10 minutes I feel we will have truly accomplished something of spectactular proportions. So many ideas, so many possibilities, and so many things we need to be careful of in this regard as well. With good comes bad... The bigger the good the badder the bad (proven in nature by waves.)

Still, its a fascinating subject and I am glad that Jean Paoli feels the same way.