Wherefore art thou?

I have been researching some stuff of late, and I tripped over a little observation, namely: XML seems to have gone to sleep. Leastways, the process of creating new XML standards seems to have hung up its hat.

I have been looking around and found several sites that claim XML standards are just around the corner, only to realise that the end of year they are talking about was 12 months ago (2001).

XML is cool, don't get me wrong, however as a glorious way to format ASCII text it still lacks a great deal of elegance, in fact most XML spec's I have seen look more like maps of warts than guides to simply and elegantly move data. In 2000 there was a comment/allusion to there were over 500 XML 'standards.' I think this is abusing the word standards myself, but many thought that these multifaceted specifications would revolutionize the IT world. Then the bottom fell out of that world.

What is the current state of XML?

From where I sit, in a cold corner of the house, XML seems to have slipped its head below the horizon. I don't believe it is dead, there are just too many good things to say about Web Services/SOAP for it to go away as a data transfer medium. I think XML standards writing has become one of those jobs no one wants because it's one step closer to the exit for the people assigned the task. That means XML standards are evaporating before our eyes. Standards don't stay standards without lots of cajoling, friendly persuasion and handholding. The economic times have taken the hand off the standards tiller.

It will take sometime to find the end of this ball of twine when the economy comes back, much will have changed in the various industries and individuals may well have taken it upon themselves to tweak the standards to suit their local needs. Hopefully, when the money comes back to look at XML standards it will do so in a more measured manner, in a way that will give us a set of workable standards, not just islands of isolated cleverness.