The XML FAQ

Adam Retter writes:

XML Slack Workspace

There's a new Slack Workspace for the XML Community announced with a link in an article on XML.com. This is a vendor independent workspace, hosted by Lauren Wood and XML.com, and equally open to XSLT, XQuery, XForms, or whatever X technology. (Thanks to Debbie Lapeyre for the pointer.)

Online, there's the XML Specification and the ancillary documentation available from the W3C; Robin Cover's XML Cover Pages with an extensive list of online reference material and links to software; and a summary and condensed FAQ from Tim Bray; and thousands of reference resources available by typing ‘xml’ into Google or other search engine.

For offline resources, see the lists of books, articles, and software for XML in Robin Cover's XML Cover Pages (articles and books). That site should always be your first port of call for archived resources.

For access to experts, particularly in consultancy and training, see the XML Guild, whose members form a consortium of some of the best independent XML consultants in the world.

The events listed below are the ones I have been told about. Please mail me if you come across others: there are many other XML events around the world, and most of them are announced at conferences, on Twitter, and on the mailing lists and newsgroups.

Events

Upcoming

Future of Text vol IV

The fourth annual Symposium on the Future of Text will be held in London (and online) on the 4th of October 2023. This is to announce ‘The Future of Text’ Vol IV which is now open for proposals (see below).

This year we are focusing on text to extend cognition in extended environments, from paper in notebooks to reams of paper across tables and onto walls, with screens, projections and head mounted devices, interacted with directly as well as through AI.

If you are able to attend on the day in London, please contact mailto:frode@hegland.com as soon as possible so that your name can be on the door for the venue.

1. The Symposium
2. Invitation to attend
3. Invitation to contribute

You may choose to propose an article for the book, a presentation for the symposium or both.

Declarative Amsterdam 5

The fifth edition of Declarative Amsterdam will take place on 2 and 3 November 2023 at the Science Park, Amsterdam. It will be a hybrid conference with the opportunity to attend live or online, for both attendees and presenters.

The first day will feature tutorials, combining presentations and hands-on sessions to give an introduction to specific topics. The second day will be a symposium, with shorter presentations. Speakers can discuss new ideas, frameworks, applications of declarative methods, and best practices.

Declarative techniques are a style of computing that expresses the purpose of computation without describing its control flow. It allows you to focus on the ‘what’, rather than the ‘how’.

Declarative Amsterdam will have presentations on past experiences, current trends and future perspectives in fields such as functional programming, declarative data modelling, databases, XML and related technologies, JSON, CSS, semantic web, data science, data visualization, grammars, parsing, and domain-specific languages.

Done and dusted

Balisage 2023

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, including XML, XSLT, xQuery, JSON, TEX, Markdown, and many others. The conference will run from 31 July to 4 August, and will be virtual again this year, so local watch-parties are encouraged.

TUG 2023

Following the very successful online meetings of past years, the TEX Users Group 2023 meeting will take place at the Hotel Collegium Leoninum, Noeggerathstrasse 34, 53111 Bonn, Germany from July 14–16, with a Tagged PDF developers’ workshop on July 13; physically if possible but the conference will be streamed.

Although primarily related to typesetting, many aspects of LATEX markup are closely related to the use of XML and the handling of structured documents.

MarkupUK 2023

MarkupUK 2023 Although primarily related to XML, all forms of markup are discussed. From 2022, both Markup UK and XML Prague will be held in alternate years, starting with XML Prague. We are looking forward to meeting you in June 2022 in Prague and in May/June 2023 in London.

Declarative Amsterdam 4

Following the last three years’ successful editions of Declarative Amsterdam, the fourth edition of Declarative Amsterdam conference will take place at CWI (Science Park, Amsterdam) on 7–8 November 2022.

We anticipate by November that we will be able to hold the conference on-site, but we are planning to broadcast and interact on-line as well. The first day will feature tutorials, combining presentations and hands-on sessions to give an introduction to specific topics. The second day is a symposium, and will consist of shorter presentations. Speakers can discuss new ideas, frameworks, applications of declarative methods, and best practices.

Balisage 2022

The Balisage markup conference is the principal technical meeting specifically about markup, including XML, TEX, Markdown, and many others. The 2022 meeting will be held August 1–5. We don't yet know if it will be all virtual or hybrid, with some in-person component(s).

TUG 2022

After the successful online meeting in 2021, the TEX Users Group 2022 meeting will also be held online, on 22–24 July. Although primarily related to typesetting, many aspects of LATEX markup are closely related to the use of XML and the handling of structured documents.

XML Prague 2022

XML Prague 2022 will take place 9–11 June 2022. From 2022, both Markup UK and XML Prague will be held in alternate years, starting with XML Prague. We are looking forward to meeting you in June 2022 in Prague and in May/June 2023 in London.