Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

January 9, 2019

Summer is Coming! Balisage is Coming! Papers Due April 12, 2019!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Database,XML Query Rewriting,XML Schema,XPath,XProc,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 7:52 pm

From a recent email about Balisage 2019:

Some “Balisage: The Markup Conference 2019” dates are coming soon:

March 29, 2019 — Peer-review applications due
April 12, 2019 — Paper submissions due
July 30 — August 2, 2019 — Balisage: The Markup Conference
July 29, 2019 — Pre-conference Symposium – Topic to be announced https://www.balisage.net/

Balisage: where serious markup practitioners and theoreticians meet every August.

A colleague recently asked me to share the program for Balisage 2019 to help support a request to attend. What, I was asked, will we talk about at Balisage 2019. I replied “It will be a variety of topics relating to markup, but we won’t know the specifics until May.” “Why? It seems like you should know that now.” was the response. “Why don’t you just decide who you want to talk about what and assign topics?” “Because that would not be a contributed paper conference, it would be some other sort of event!”

Balisage *is* a contributed paper conference, and the submissions from people who want to speak drive the program, the hallway conversations, and the whole tone of Balisage!

If you want to speak at Balisage 2019, if you want to help shape the conversation, if you have an idea, experience, opinion, or question relating to markup, please submit a paper to Balisage 2019!

We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses; topics include but ARE NOT LIMITED TO:

• Cutting-edge applications of XML and related technologies
• Integration of XML with other technologies (e.g., content management, XSLT, XQuery)
• Performance issues in parsing, XML database retrieval, or XSLT processing
• Development of angle-bracket-free user interfaces for non-technical users
• Deployment of XML systems for enterprise data
• Design and implementation of XML vocabularies
• Case studies of the use of XML for publishing, interchange, or archiving
• Alternatives to XML/JSON/whatever
• Expressive power and application adequacy of XSD, Relax NG, DTDs, Schematron, and other schema languages
• Invisible XML

Detailed Call for Participation: https://www.balisage.net/Call4Participation.html
Call for Peer Reviewers: https://www.balisage.net/peer/ReviewAppForm.html
About Balisage: https://www.balisage.net/

For more information: info@balisage.net or +1 301 315 9631

Papers are due for Balisage in a little more than 90 days.

Anyone doing a topic map paper this year?

“If you can point to it, we can identify it. If we can identify it, we can map it. If we can map it, …,” well, you know how the rest of it goes.

Data silos continue to exist because they are armor. Armor that protects some stakeholders from prying eyes. Up for a little peeping?

May 29, 2018

Balisage Late-Breaking News Deadline – 6 July 2018 – Attract/Spot a Fed!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 7:10 pm

Balisage 2018 Call for Late-breaking News

From the post:

…
Proposals for late-breaking slots must be received at info@balisage.net by July 6, 2018. Selection of late-breaking proposals will be made by the Balisage conference committee, instead of being made in the course of the regular peer-review process. (emphasis in original)
…

The Def Con conference attendees play spot the fed.

But spot the fed requires some feds in order to play.

Feds show up at hacker conferences. For content or the company of people with poor personal hygiene.

Let’s assume it’s the content.

What content for a markup paper will attract undercover federal agents?

Success means playing spot the fed at Balisage 2018.

Topics anyone?

February 5, 2018

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2018 – 77 Days To Paper Submission Deadline!

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 8:46 pm

Call for Participation

Submission dates/instructions have dropped!

…

When:
Dates:

  • 22 March 2018 — Peer review applications due
  • 22 April 2018 — Paper submissions due
  • 21 May 2018 — Speakers notified
  • 8 June 2018 — Late-breaking News submissions due
  • 15 June 2018 — Late-breaking News speakers notified
  • 6 July 2018 — Final papers due from presenters of peer reviewed papers
  • 6 July 2018 — Short paper or slide summary due from presenters of late-breaking news
  • 30 July 2018 — Pre-conference Symposium
  • 31 July –3 August 2018 — Balisage: The Markup Conference
How:
Submit full papers in XML to info@balisage.net
See the pages Instructions for Authors and
Tag Set and Submission Guidelines for details.
Apply to the Peer Review panel

…

I’ve heard inability to submit valid markup counts in the judging of papers. That may just be rumor or it may be true. I suggest validating your submission.

You should be on the fourth or fifth draft of your paper by now, but be aware the paper submission deadline is April 22, 2018, or 77 days from today!

Looking forward to seeing exceptionally strong papers in the review process and being presented at Balisage!

December 26, 2017

xsd2json – XML Schema to JSON Schema Transform

Filed under: JSON,XML,XML Schema — Patrick Durusau @ 9:12 pm

xsd2json by Loren Cahlander.

From the webpage:

XML Schema to JSON Schema Transform – Development and Test Environment

The options that are supported are:

‘keepNamespaces’ – set to true if keeping prefices in the property names is required otherwise prefixes are eliminated.

‘schemaId’ – the name of the schema

#xs:short { “type”: “integer”, “xsdType”: “xs:short”, “minimum”: -32768, “maximum”: 32767, “exclusiveMinimum”: false, “exclusiveMaximum”: false }

To be honest, I can’t imagine straying from Relax-NG, much less converting an XSD schema into a JSON schema.

But, it’s not possible to predict all needs and futures (hint to AI fearests). It will be easier to find xsd2json here than with adware burdened “modern” search engines, should the need arise.

June 30, 2017

Neo4j 3.3.0-alpha02 (Graphs For Schemas?)

Filed under: Cypher,Graphs,Neo4j,Visualization,XML Schema — Patrick Durusau @ 10:19 am

Neo4j 3.3.0-alpha02

A bit late (release was 06/15/2017) but give Neo4j 3.3.0-alpha02 a spin over the weekend.

From the post:

…
Detailed Changes and Docs

For the complete list of all changes, please see the changelog. Look for 3.3 Developer manual here, and 3.3 Operations manual here.
…

Neo4j is one of the graph engines a friend wants to use for analysis/modeling of the ODF 1.2 schema. The traditional indented list is only one tree visualization out of the four major ones.

(From: Trees & Graphs by Nathalie Henry Riche, Microsoft Research)

Riche’s presentation covers a number of other ways to visualize trees and if you relax the “tree” requirement for display, interesting graph visualizations that may give insight into a schema design.

The slides are part of the materials for CSE512 Data Visualization (Winter 2014), so references for visualizing trees and graphs need to be updated. Check the course resources link for more visualization resources.

May 17, 2017

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2017 Program Now Available

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 3:42 pm

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2017 Program Now Available

An email from Tommie Usdin, Chair, Chief Organizer and herder of markup cats for Balisage advises:

Balisage: where serious markup practitioners and theoreticians meet every August.

The 2017 program includes papers discussing XML vocabularies, cutting-edge digital humanities, lossless JSON/XML roundtripping, reflections on concrete syntax and abstract syntax, parsing and generation, web app development using the XML stack, managing test cases, pipelining and micropipelinging, electronic health records, rethinking imperative algorithms for XSLT and XQuery, markup and intellectual property, why YOU should use (my favorite XML vocabulary), developing a system to aid in studying manuscripts in the tradition of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Highlands, exploring “shapes” in RDF and their relationship to schema validation, exposing XML data to users of varying technical skill, test-suite management, and use case studies about large conversion applications, DITA, and SaxonJS.

Up-Translation and Up-Transformation: A one-day Symposium on the goals, challenges, solutions, and workflows for significant XML enhancements, including approaches, tools, and techniques that may potentially be used for a variety of other tasks. The symposium will be of value not only to those facing up-translation and transformation but also to general XML practitioners seeking to get the most out of their data.

Are you interested in open information, reusable documents, and vendor and application independence? Then you need descriptive markup, and Balisage is your conference. Balisage brings together document architects, librarians, archivists, computer scientists, XML practitioners, XSLT and XQuery programmers, implementers of XSLT and XQuery engines and other markup-related software, semantic-Web evangelists, standards developers, academics, industrial researchers, government and NGO staff, industrial developers, practitioners, consultants, and the world’s greatest concentration of markup theorists. Some participants are busy designing replacements for XML while other still use SGML (and know why they do).

Discussion is open, candid, and unashamedly technical.

Balisage 2017 Program:
http://www.balisage.net/2017/Program.html

Symposium Program:
https://www.balisage.net/UpTransform

NOTE: Members of the TEI and their employees are eligible for discount Balisage registration.

You need to see the program for yourself but the highlights (for me) include: Ethiopic manuscripts (ok, so I have odd tastes), Earley parsers (of particular interest), English Majors (my wife was an English major), and a number of other high points.

Mark your calendar for July 31 – August 4, 2017 – It’s Balisage!

January 16, 2017

XML.com Relaunch!

Filed under: XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 4:11 pm

XML.com

Lauren Wood posted this note about the relaunch of XML.com recently:

I’ve relaunched XML.com (for some background, Tim Bray wrote an article here: https://www.xml.com/articles/2017/01/01/xmlcom-redux/). I’m hoping it will become part of the community again, somewhere for people to post their news (submit your news here: https://www.xml.com/news/submit-news-item/) and articles (see the guidelines at https://www.xml.com/about/contribute/). I added a job board to the site as well (if you’re in Berlin, Germany, or able to
move there, look at the job currently posted; thanks LambdaWerk!); if your employer might want to post XML-related jobs please email me.

The old content should mostly be available but some articles were previously available at two (or more) locations and may now only be at one; try the archive list (https://www.xml.com/pub/a/archive/) if you’re looking for something. Please let me know if something major is missing from the archives.

XML is used in a lot of areas, and there is a wealth of knowledge in this community. If you’d like to write an article, send me your ideas. If you have comments on the site, let me know that as well.

Just in time as President Trump is about to stir, vigorously, that big pot of crazy known as federal data.

Mapping, processing, transformation demands will grow at an exponential rate.

Notice the emphasis on demand.

Taking a two weeks to write custom software to sort files (you know the Weiner/Abedin laptop story, yes?) won’t be acceptable quite soon.

How are your on-demand XML chops?

November 29, 2016

Visualizing XML Schemas

Filed under: Visualization,XML,XML Schema — Patrick Durusau @ 8:51 pm

I don’t have one of the commercial XML packages at the moment and was casting about for a free visualization technique for a large XML schema when I encountered:

schema-visualization-460

I won’t be trying it on my schema until tomorrow but I thought it looked interesting enough to pass along.

Further details: Visualizing Complex Content Models with Spatial Schemas by Joe Pairman.

This looks almost teachable.

Thoughts?

Other “free” visualization tools to suggest?

June 28, 2016

The Feynman Technique – Contest for Balisage 2016?

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 7:23 pm

The Best Way to Learn Anything: The Feynman Technique by Shane Parrish.

From the post:

There are four simple steps to the Feynman Technique, which I’ll explain below:

  1. Choose a Concept
  2. Teach it to a Toddler
  3. Identify Gaps and Go Back to The Source Material
  4. Review and Simplify

…

This made me think of the late-breaking Balisage 2016 papers posted by Tommie Usdin in email:

  • Saxon-JS – XSLT 3.0 in the Browser, by Debbie Lockett and Michael Kay, Saxonica
  • A MicroXPath for MicroXML (AKA A New, Simpler Way of Looking at XML Data Content), by Uche Ogbuji, Zepheira
  • A catalog of Functional programming idioms in XQuery 3.1, James Fuller, MarkLogic

New contest for Balisage?

Pick a concept from a Balisage 2016 presentation and you have sixty (60) seconds to explain it to Balisage attendees.

What do you think?

Remember, you can’t play if you don’t attend! Register today!

If Tommie agrees, the winner gets me to record a voice mail greeting for their phone! 😉

May 23, 2016

Balisage 2016 Program Posted! (Newcomers Welcome!)

Filed under: Conferences,Topic Maps,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XProc,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 8:03 pm

Tommie Usdin wrote today to say:

Balisage: The Markup Conference
2016 Program Now Available
http://www.balisage.net/2016/Program.html

Balisage: where serious markup practitioners and theoreticians meet every August.

The 2016 program includes papers discussing reducing ambiguity in linked-open-data annotations, the visualization of XSLT execution patterns, automatic recognition of grant- and funding-related information in scientific papers, construction of an interactive interface to assist cybersecurity analysts, rules for graceful extension and customization of standard vocabularies, case studies of agile schema development, a report on XML encoding of subtitles for video, an extension of XPath to file systems, handling soft hyphens in historical texts, an automated validity checker for formatted pages, one no-angle-brackets editing interface for scholars of German family names and another for scholars of Roman legal history, and a survey of non-XML markup such as Markdown.

XML In, Web Out: A one-day Symposium on the sub rosa XML that powers an increasing number of websites will be held on Monday, August 1. http://balisage.net/XML-In-Web-Out/

If you are interested in open information, reusable documents, and vendor and application independence, then you need descriptive markup, and Balisage is the conference you should attend. Balisage brings together document architects, librarians, archivists, computer
scientists, XML practitioners, XSLT and XQuery programmers, implementers of XSLT and XQuery engines and other markup-related software, Topic-Map enthusiasts, semantic-Web evangelists, standards developers, academics, industrial researchers, government and NGO staff, industrial developers, practitioners, consultants, and the world’s greatest concentration of markup theorists. Some participants are busy designing replacements for XML while other still use SGML (and know why they do).

Discussion is open, candid, and unashamedly technical.

Balisage 2016 Program: http://www.balisage.net/2016/Program.html

Symposium Program: http://balisage.net/XML-In-Web-Out/symposiumProgram.html

Even if you don’t eat RELAX grammars at snack time, put Balisage on your conference schedule. Even if a bit scruffy looking, the long time participants like new document/information problems or new ways of looking at old ones. Not to mention they, on occasion, learn something from newcomers as well.

It is a unique opportunity to meet the people who engineered the tools and specs that you use day to day.

Be forewarned that most of them have difficulty agreeing what controversial terms mean, like “document,” but that to one side, they are a good a crew as you are likely to meet.

Enjoy!

February 2, 2016

Balisage 2016, 2–5 August 2016 [XML That Makes A Difference!]

Filed under: Conferences,XLink,XML,XML Data Clustering,XML Schema,XPath,XProc,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 9:47 pm

Call for Participation

Dates:

  • 25 March 2016 — Peer review applications due
  • 22 April 2016 — Paper submissions due
  • 21 May 2016 — Speakers notified
  • 10 June 2016 — Late-breaking News submissions due
  • 16 June 2016 — Late-breaking News speakers notified
  • 8 July 2016 — Final papers due from presenters of peer reviewed papers
  • 8 July 2016 — Short paper or slide summary due from presenters of late-breaking news
  • 1 August 2016 — Pre-conference Symposium
  • 2–5 August 2016 — Balisage: The Markup Conference

From the call:

Balisage is the premier conference on the theory, practice, design, development, and application of markup. We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses; topics include but are not limited to:

  • Web application development with XML
  • Informal data models and consensus-based vocabularies
  • Integration of XML with other technologies (e.g., content management, XSLT, XQuery)
  • Performance issues in parsing, XML database retrieval, or XSLT processing
  • Development of angle-bracket-free user interfaces for non-technical users
  • Semistructured data and full text search
  • Deployment of XML systems for enterprise data
  • Web application development with XML
  • Design and implementation of XML vocabularies
  • Case studies of the use of XML for publishing, interchange, or archiving
  • Alternatives to XML
  • the role(s) of XML in the application lifecycle
  • the role(s) of vocabularies in XML environments

Full papers should be submitted by the deadline given below. All papers are peer-reviewed — we pride ourselves that you will seldom get a more thorough, skeptical, or helpful review than the one provided by Balisage reviewers.

…

Whether in theory or practice, let’s make Balisage 2016 the one people speak of in hushed tones at future markup and information conferences.

Useful semantics continues to flounder about, cf. Vice-President Biden’s interest in “one cancer research language.” Easy enough to say. How hard could it be?

Documents are commonly thought of and processed as if from BOM to EOF is the definition of a document. Much to our impoverishment.

Silo dissing has gotten popular. What if we could have our silos and eat them too?

Let’s set our sights on a Balisage 2016 where non-technicals come away saying “I want that!”

Have your first drafts done well before the end of February, 2016!

January 21, 2015

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2015

Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XProc,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 8:48 pm

Balisage: The Markup Conference 2015 – There is Nothing As Practical As A Good Theory

Key dates:
– 27 March 2015 — Peer review applications due
– 17 April 2015 — Paper submissions due
– 17 April 2015 — Applications for student support awards due
– 22 May 2015 — Speakers notified
– 17 July 2015 — Final papers due
– 10 August 2015 — Symposium on Cultural Heritage Markup
– 11–14 August 2015 — Balisage: The Markup Conference

Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, just outside Washington, DC (I know, no pool with giant head, etc. Do you think if we ask nicely they would put one in? And change the theme of the decorations about every 30 feet in the lobby?)

Balisage is the premier conference on the theory, practice, design, development, and application of markup. We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses; topics include but are not limited to:

  • Cutting-edge applications of XML and related technologies
  • Integration of XML with other technologies (e.g., content management, XSLT, XQuery)
  • Web application development with XML
  • Performance issues in parsing, XML database retrieval, or XSLT processing
  • Development of angle-bracket-free user interfaces for non-technical users
  • Deployment of XML systems for enterprise data
  • Design and implementation of XML vocabularies
  • Case studies of the use of XML for publishing, interchange, or archiving
  • Alternatives to XML
  • Expressive power and application adequacy of XSD, Relax NG, DTDs, Schematron, and other schema languages

    • Detailed Call for Participation: http://balisage.net/Call4Participation.html
    About Balisage: http://balisage.net/
    Instructions for authors: http://balisage.net/authorinstructions.html

    For more information: info@balisage.net or +1 301 315 9631

    I wonder if the local authorities realize the danger in putting that many skilled markup people so close the source of so much content? (Washington) With attendees sparking off against each other, who knows?, could see an accountable and auditable legislative and rule making document flow arise. There may not be enough members of Congress in town to smother it.

    The revolution may not be televised but it will be powered by markup and its advocates. Come join the crowd with the tools to make open data transparent.

    March 18, 2014

    Balisage Papers Due 18 April 2014

    Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 2:21 pm

    Unlike the rolling dates for Obamacare, Balisage Papers are due 18 April 2014. (That’s this year for health care wonks.)

    From the website:

    Balisage is an annual conference devoted to the theory and practice of descriptive markup and related technologies for structuring and managing information.

    Are you interested in open information, reusable documents, and vendor and application independence? Then you need descriptive markup, and Balisage is the conference you should attend. Balisage brings together document architects, librarians, archivists, computer scientists, XML wizards, XSLT and XQuery programmers, implementers of XSLT and XQuery engines and other markup-related software, Topic-Map enthusiasts, semantic-Web evangelists, standards developers, academics, industrial researchers, government and NGO staff, industrial developers, practitioners, consultants, and the world’s greatest concentration of markup theorists. Some participants are busy designing replacements for XML while other still use SGML (and know why they do). Discussion is open, candid, and unashamedly technical. Content-free marketing spiels are unwelcome and ineffective.

    I can summarize that for you:

    There are conferences on the latest IT buzz.

    There are conferences on last year’s IT buzz.

    Then there are conferences on information as power, which decides who will sup and who will serve.

    Balisage is about information as power. How you use it, well, that’s up to you.

    January 14, 2014

    Balisage 2014: Near the Belly of the Beast

    Filed under: Conferences,HyTime,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 7:29 pm

    Balisage: The Markup Conference 2014 Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, just outside Washington, DC

    Key dates:
    – 28 March 2014 — Peer review applications due
    – 18 April 2014 — Paper submissions due
    – 18 April 2014 — Applications for student support awards due
    – 20 May 2014 — Speakers notified
    – 11 July 2014 — Final papers due
    – 4 August 2014 — Pre-conference Symposium
    – 5–8 August 2014 — Balisage: The Markup Conference

    From the call for participation:

    Balisage is the premier conference on the theory, practice, design, development, and application of markup. We solicit papers on any aspect of markup and its uses; topics include but are not limited to:

    • Cutting-edge applications of XML and related technologies
    • Integration of XML with other technologies (e.g., content management, XSLT, XQuery)
    • Performance issues in parsing, XML database retrieval, or XSLT processing
    • Development of angle-bracket-free user interfaces for non-technical users
    • Deployment of XML systems for enterprise data
    • Design and implementation of XML vocabularies
    • Case studies of the use of XML for publishing, interchange, or archving
    • Alternatives to XML
    • Expressive power and application adequacy of XSD, Relax NG, DTDs, Schematron, and other schema languages

    Detailed Call for Participation: http://balisage.net/Call4Participation.html
    About Balisage: http://balisage.net/Call4Participation.html
    Instructions for authors: http://balisage.net/authorinstructions.html

    For more information: info@balisage.net or +1 301 315 9631

    I checked, from the conference hotel you are anywhere from 25.6 to 27.9 miles by car from the NSA Visitor Center at Fort Meade.

    Take appropriate security measures.

    When I heard Balisage was going to be in Bethesda, the first song that came to mind was: Back in the U.S.S.R.. Followed quickly by Leonard Cohen’s Democracy Is Coming to the U.S.A..

    I don’t know where the equivalent of St. Catherine Street of Montreal is in Bethesda. But when I find out, you will be the first to know!

    Balisage is simply the best markup technology conference. (full stop) Start working on your manager now to get time to write a paper and to attend Balisage.

    When the time comes for “big data” to make sense, markup will be there to answer the call. You should be too.

    July 23, 2013

    XML Calabash

    Filed under: XML,XML Schema,XProc — Patrick Durusau @ 2:02 pm

    XML Calabash

    From the webpage:

    XML Calabash is an implementation of XProc: An XML Pipeline Language.

    See the XML Calabash project status page for more details.

    You can download Calabash and/or read the (very little bit of) documentation. Calabash also ships with the xml editor (as does Saxon-EE which includes support for validation with W3C XML Schema).

    A new release of Calabash reminded me that I needed to update some of my XML tooling.

    If you are looking for an opportunity to write documentation, this could be your lucky day! 😉

    May 28, 2013

    Four and Twenty < / > ! Baked in a Pie…

    Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Database,XML Query Rewriting,XML Schema,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 2:53 pm

    Balisage 2013 program is online!

    From Tommie Usdin’s email:

    Balisage is an annual conference devoted to the theory and practice of descriptive markup and related technologies for structuring and managing information. Participants typically include XML users, librarians, archivists, computer scientists, XSLT and XQuery programmers, implementers of XSLT and XQuery engines and other markup-related software, Topic-Map enthusiasts, semantic-Web evangelists, members of the working groups which define the specifications, academics, industrial researchers, representatives of governmental bodies and NGOs, industrial developers, practitioners, consultants, and the world’s greatest concentration of markup theorists. Discussion is open, candid, and unashamedly technical.

    Major features of this year’s program include several challenges to the fundamental infrastructure of XML; case studies from government, academia, and publishing; approaches to overlapping data structures; discussions of XML’s political fortunes; and technical papers on XML, XForms, XQuery, REST, XSLT, RDF, XSL-FO, XSD, the DOM, JSON, and XPath.

    Attending Balisage even once will keep you from repeating mistakes in language design.

    Attending Balisage twice will mark you as a markup expert.

    Attending Balisage three or more times, well, this is an open channel so we can’t go there.

    But you should go to Balisage!

    Send your pics from Saint Catherine Street!

    February 19, 2013

    “…XML User Interfaces” As in Using XML?

    Filed under: Conferences,Interface Research/Design,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 1:00 pm

    International Symposium on Native XML user interfaces

    This came across the wire this morning and I need your help interpreting it.

    Why would you want to have an interface to XML?

    All these years I have been writing XML in Emacs because XML wasn’t supposed to have an interface.

    Brave hearts, male, female and unknown, struggling with issues too obscure for mere mortals.

    Now I find that isn’t supposed to be so? You can imagine my reaction.

    I moved my laptop a bit closer to the peat fire to make sure I read it properly. Waiting for the ox cart later this week to take my complaint to the local bishop about this disturbing innovation.

    😉

    15 March 2013 — Peer review applications due
    19 April 2013 — Paper submissions due
    19 April 2013 — Applications due for student support awards due
    21 May 2013 — Speakers notified
    12 July 2013 — Final papers due
    5 August 2013 — International Symposium on Native XML user interfaces
    6–9 August 2013 — Balisage: The Markup Conference

    International Symposium on
    Native XML user interfaces

    Monday August 5, 2013 Hotel Europa, Montréal, Canada

    XML is everywhere. It is created, gathered, manipulated, queried, browsed, read, and modified. XML systems need user interfaces to do all of these things. How can we make user interfaces for XML that are powerful, simple to use, quick to develop, and easy to maintain?

    How are we building user interfaces today? How can we build them tomorrow? Are we using XML to drive our user interfaces? How?

    This one-day symposium is devoted to the theory and practice of user interfaces for XML: the current state of implementations, practical case studies, challenges for users, and the outlook for the future development of the technology.

    Relevant topics include:

    • Editors customized for specific purposes or users
    • User interfaces for creation, management, and use of XML documents
    • Uses of XForms
    • Making tools for creation of XML textual documents
    • Using general-purpose user-interface libraries to build XML interfaces
    • Looking at XML, especially looking at masses of XML documents
    • XML, XSLT, and XQuery in the browser
    • Specialized user interfaces for specialized tasks
    • XML vocabularies for user-interface specification

    Presentations can take a variety of forms, including technical papers, case studies, and tool demonstrations (technical overviews, not product pitches).

    This is the same conference I wrote about in: Markup Olympics (Balisage) [No Drug Testing].

    In times of lean funding for conferences, if you go to a conference this year, it really should be Balisage.

    You will be the envy of your co-workers and have tales to tell your grandchildren.

    Not bad for one conference registration fee.

    January 10, 2013

    Markup Olympics (Balisage) [No Drug Testing]

    Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Database,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 1:46 pm

    Markup athletes take heart! Unlike venues that intrude into the personal lives of competitors, there are no, repeat no drug tests for presenters at Balisage!

    Fear no trainer betrayals or years of being dogged by second-raters in the press.

    Eat, drink, visit, ???, present, in the company of your peers.

    The more traditional call for participation, yawn, has the following details:

    Dates:

    15 March 2013 – Peer review applications due
    19 April 2013 – Paper submissions due
    19 April 2013 – Applications due for student support awards due
    21 May 2013 – Speakers notified
    12 July 2013 – Final papers due

    5 August 2013 – Pre-conference Symposium on XForms
    6-9 August 2013 – Balisage: The Markup Conference

    From the call:

    Balisage is where people interested in descriptive markup meet each year in August for informed technical discussion, occasionally impassioned debate, good coffee, and the incomparable ambience of one of North America’s greatest cities, Montreal. We welcome anyone interested in discussing the use of descriptive markup to build strong, lasting information systems.

    Practitioner or theorist, tool-builder or tool-user, student or lecturer — you are invited to submit a paper proposal for Balisage 2013. As always, papers at Balisage can address any aspect of the use of markup and markup languages to represent information and build information systems. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

    • XML and related technologies
    • Non-XML markup languages
    • Big Data and XML
    • Implementation experience with XML parsing, XSLT processors, XQuery processors, XML databases, XProc integrations, or any markup-related technology
    • Semantics, overlap, and other complex fundamental issues for markup languages
    • Case studies of markup design and deployment
    • Quality of information in markup systems
    • JSON and XML
    • Efficiency of Markup Software
    • Markup systems in and for the mobile web
    • The future of XML and of descriptive markup in general
    • Interesting applications of markup

    In addition, please consider becoming a Peer Reviewer. Reviewers play a critical role towards the success of Balisage. They review blind submissions — on topics that interest them — for technical merit, interest, and applicability. Your comments and recommendations can assist the Conference Committee in creating the program for Balisage 2013!

    How:

    More IQ per square foot than any other conference you will attend in 2013!

    November 20, 2012

    Balisage 2013 – Dates/Location

    Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Database,XML Query Rewriting,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT,XTM — Patrick Durusau @ 3:19 pm

    Tommie Usdin just posted email with the Balisage 2013 dates and location:

    Montreal, Hotel Europa, August 5 – 9 , 2013

    Hope that works with everything else.

    That’s the entire email so I don’t know what was meant by:

    Hope that works with everything else.

    Short of it being your own funeral, open-heart surgery or giving birth (to your first child), I am not sure what “everything else” there could be?

    You get a temporary excuse for the second two cases and a permanent excuse for the first one.

    Now’s a good time to hint about plane fare plus hotel and expenses for Balisage as a stocking stuffer.

    And to wish a happy holiday Tommie Usdin and to all the folks at Mulberry Technology who make Balisage possible all of us. Each and every one.

    June 21, 2012

    BaseX 7.3 (The Summer Edition) is now available!

    Filed under: BaseX,XML,XML Database,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery — Patrick Durusau @ 7:47 am

    BaseX 7.3 (The Summer Edition) is now available!

    From the post:

    we are glad to announce a great new release of BaseX, our XML database and XPath/XQuery 3.0 processor! Here are the latest features:

    • Many new internal XQuery Modules have been added, and existing ones have been revised to ensure long-term stability of your future XQuery applications
    • A new powerful Command API is provided to specify BaseX commands and scripts as XML
    • The full-text fuzzy index was extended to also support wildcard queries
    • The simple map operator of XQuery 3.0 gives you a compact syntax to process items of sequences
    • BaseX as Web Application can now start its own server instance
    • All command-line options will now be executed in the given order
    • Charles Foster’s latest XQJ Driver supports XQuery 3.0 and the Update and Full Text extensions

    For those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, we wish you a nice summer! No worries, we’ll stay busy..

    Just in time for the start of summer in the Northern Hemisphere!

    Something you can toss onto your laptop before you head to the beach.

    Err, huh? Well, even if you don’t take BaseX 7.3 to the beach, it promises to be good fun for the summer and more serious work should the occasion arise.

    I count twenty-three (23) modules in addition to the XQuery functions specified by the latest XPath/XQuery 3.0 draft.

    Just so you know, the BaseX database server listens to port 1984 by default.

    June 1, 2012

    Are You Going to Balisage?

    Filed under: Conferences,RDF,RDFa,Semantic Web,XML,XML Database,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 2:48 pm

    To the tune of “Are You Going to Scarborough Fair:”

    Are you going to Balisage?
    Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
    Remember me to one who is there,
    she once was a true love of mine.

    Tell her to make me an XML shirt,
    Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
    Without any seam or binary code,
    Then she shall be a true lover of mine.

    ….

    Oh, sorry! There you will see:

    • higher-order functions in XSLT
    • Schematron to enforce consistency constraints
    • relation of the XML stack (the XDM data model) to JSON
    • integrating JSON support into XDM-based technologies like XPath, XQuery, and XSLT
    • XML and non-XML syntaxes for programming languages and documents
    • type introspection in XQuery
    • using XML to control processing in a document management system
    • standardizing use of XQuery to support RESTful web interfaces
    • RDF to record relations among TEI documents
    • high-performance knowledge management system using an XML database
    • a corpus of overlap samples
    • an XSLT pipeline to translate non-XML markup for overlap into XML
    • comparative entropy of various representations of XML
    • interoperability of XML in web browsers
    • XSLT extension functions to validate OCL constraints in UML models
    • ontological analysis of documents
    • statistical methods for exploring large collections of XML data

    Balisage is an annual conference devoted to the theory and practice of descriptive markup and related technologies for structuring and managing information. Participants typically include XML users, librarians, archivists, computer scientists, XSLT and XQuery programmers, implementers of XSLT and XQuery engines and other markup-related software, Topic-Map enthusiasts, semantic-Web evangelists, members of the working groups which define the specifications, academics, industrial researchers, representatives of governmental bodies and NGOs, industrial developers, practitioners, consultants, and the world’s greatest concentration of markup theorists. Discussion is open, candid, and unashamedly technical.

    The Balisage 2012 Program is now available at: http://www.balisage.net/2012/Program.html

    May 29, 2012

    Destination: Montreal!

    Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Data Clustering,XML Query Rewriting,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 3:04 pm

    If you remember the Saturday afternoon sci-fi movies, Destination: …., then you will appreciate the title for this post. 😉

    Tommie Usdin and company just posted: Balisage 2012 Call for Late-breaking News, written in torn bodice style:

    The peer-reviewed part of the Balisage 2012 program has been scheduled (and will be announced in a few days). A few slots on the Balisage program have been reserved for presentation of “Late-breaking” material.

    Proposals for late-breaking slots must be received by June 15, 2012. Selection of late-breaking proposals will be made by the Balisage conference committee, instead of being made in the course of the regular peer-review process.

    If you have a presentation that should be part of Balisage, please send a proposal message as plain-text email to info@balisage.net.

    In order to be considered for inclusion in the final program, your proposal message must supply the following information:

    • The name(s) and affiliations of all author(s)/speaker(s)
    • The email address of the presenter
    • The title of the presentation
    • An abstract of 100-150 words, suitable for immediate distribution
    • Disclosure of when and where, if some part of this material has already been presented or published
    • An indication as to whether the presenter is comfortable giving a conference presentation and answering questions in English about the material to be presented
    • Your assurance that all authors are willing and able to sign the Balisage Non-exclusive Publication Agreement (http://www.balisage.net/BalisagePublicationAgreement.pdf) with respect to the proposed presentation

    In order to be in serious contention for inclusion in the final program, your proposal should probably be either a) really late-breaking (it happened in the last month or two) or b) a paper, an extended paper proposal, or a very long abstract with references. Late-breaking slots are few and the competition is fiercer than for peer-reviewed papers. The more we know about your proposal, the better we can appreciate the quality of your submission.

    Please feel encouraged to provide any other information that could aid the conference committee as it considers your proposal, such as a detailed outline, samples, code, and/or graphics. We expect to receive far more proposals than we can accept, so it’s important that you send enough information to make your proposal convincing and exciting. (This material may be attached to the email message, if appropriate.)

    The conference committee reserves the right to make editorial changes in your abstract and/or title for the conference program and publicity. (emphasis added to last sentence)

    Read that last sentence again!

    “The conference committee reserves the right to make editorial changes in your abstract and/or title for the conference program and publicity.”

    The conference committee might change your abstract and/or title to say something …. controversial? ….attention getting? ….CNN / Slashdot worthy?

    Bring it on!

    Submit late breaking proposals!

    Please!

    February 14, 2012

    Would You Know “Good” XML If It Bit You?

    Filed under: Uncategorized,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 5:16 pm

    XML is a pale imitation of a markup language. It has resulted in real horrors across the markup landscape. After years in its service, I don’t have much hope of that changing.

    But, the Princess of the Northern Marches has organized a war council to consider how to stem the tide of bad XML. Despite my personal misgivings, I wish them well and invite you to participate as you see fit.

    Oh, and I found this message about the council meeting:

    International Symposium on Quality Assurance and Quality Control in XML

    Monday August 6, 2012
    Hotel Europa, Montréal, Canada

    Paper submissions due April 20, 2012.

    A one-day discussion of issues relating to Quality Control and Quality Assurance in the XML environment.

    XML systems and software are complex and constantly changing. XML documents are highly varied, may be large or small, and often have complex life-cycles. In this challenging environment quality is difficult to define, measure, or control, yet the justifications for using XML often include promises or implications relating to quality.

    We invite papers on all aspects of quality with respect to XML systems, including but not limited to:

    • Defining, measuring, testing, improving, and documenting quality
    • Quality in documents, document models, software, transformations, or queries
    • Case studies in the control of quality in an XML environment
    • Theoretical or practical approaches to measuring quality in XML
    • Does the presence of XML, XML schemas, and XML tools make quality checking easier, harder, or even different from other computing environments
    • Should XML transforms and schemas be QAed as software? Or configuration files? Or documents? Does it matter?

    Paper submissions due April 20, 2012.

    Details at: http://www.balisage.net/QA-QC/

    You do have to understand the semantics of even imitation markup languages before mapping them with more robust languages. Enjoy!

    February 12, 2012

    XML Prague 2012 (proceedings)

    Filed under: Conferences,XML,XML Schema,XPath,XQuery,XSLT — Patrick Durusau @ 5:11 pm

    XML Prague 2012 (proceedings) (PDF)

    Fourteen papers by the leading lights in the XML world covering everything from XProc and XQuery to NVDL and JSONiq, and places in between.

    Put it on your XML reading list.

    December 24, 2011

    Development Life Cycle and Tools for Data Exchange Specification

    Filed under: Integration,XML,XML Schema — Patrick Durusau @ 4:42 pm

    Development Life Cycle and Tools for Data Exchange Specification (2008) by KC Morris , Puja Goyal.

    Abstract:

    In enterprise integration, a data exchange specification is an architectural artifact that evolves along with the business. Developing and maintaining a coherent semantic model for data exchange is an important, yet non-trivial, task. A coherent semantic model of data exchange specifications supports reuse, promotes interoperability, and, consequently, reduces integration costs. Components of data exchange specifications must be consistent and valid in terms of agreed upon standards and guidelines. In this paper, we describe an activity model and NIST developed tools for the creation, test, and maintenance of a shared semantic model that is coherent and supports scalable, standards-based enterprise integration. The activity model frames our research and helps define tools to support the development of data exchange specification implemented using XML (Extensible Markup Language) Schema.

    A paper that makes it clear that interoperability is not a trivial task. Could be helpful in convincing the ‘powers that be’ that projects on semantic integration or interoperability have to be properly resourced in order to have a useful result.

    Manufacturing System Integration Division – MSID XML Testbed (NIST)

    Filed under: Integration,XML,XML Schema — Patrick Durusau @ 4:42 pm

    Manufacturing System Integration Division – MSID XML Testbed (NIST)

    From the website:

    NIST’s efforts to define methods and tools for developing XML Schemas to support systems integraton will help you effectively build and deploy XML Schemas amongst partners in integration projects. Through the Manufacturing Interoperability Program (MIP) XML Testbed, NIST provides guidance on how to build XML Schemas as well as a collection of tools that will help with the process allowing projects to more quickly and efficiently meet their goals.

    The NIST XML Schema development and testing process is documented as the Model Development Life Cycle, which is an activity model for the creation, use, and maintenance of shared semantic models, and has been used to frame our research and development tools. We have worked with a number of industries on refining and automating the specification process and provide a wealth of information on how to use XML to address your integration needs.

    On this site you will find a collection of tools and ideas to help you in developing high quality XML schemas. The tools available on this site are offered to the general public free of charge. They have been developed by the United States Government and as such are not subject to copyright or other restrictions.

    If you are interested in seeing the tools extended or having some of your work included in the service please contact us.

    The thought did occur to me that you could write an XML schema that governs the documentation of the subjects, their properties and merging conditions in your information systems. Perhaps even to the point of using XSLT to run against the resulting documentation to create SQL statements for the integration of information resources held in your database (or accessible therefrom).

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