August 22, 2004
@ 03:30 AM

Every once in a while I like to post a list of articles I'm either in the process of writing or considering writing to get feedback from people on what they'd like to see or whether the topics are even worthwhile. Below is a list of the next couple of articles I'm either in the process of writing or plan to write over the next few months.

  1. An Introduction to Validating XML Documents with Schematron (MSDN) : An introduction to Schematron including examples showing how one can augment a W3C XML Schema document using Schematron thus creating an extremely powerful XML schema language.  Code samples will use Schematron.NET

  2. Designing XML Formats: Versioning vs. Extensibility (XML 2004 Conference) : This is the presentation and paper for my XML 2004 talk. It will basically be the ideas in my article On Designing Extensible, Versionable XML Formats with more examples and less fluff.

  3. The XML Litmus Test - Deciding When and Why To Use XML (MSDN) : After seeing more and more people at work who seem to not understand what XML is good for or what the decision making process should be for adopting XML I decided to put this article together.  This will basically be an amalgamation of my XML Litmus Test blog post and my Understanding XML article on MSDN.  

  4. XML in Cw (XML.com)  : An overview of the XML based features of Cw. The Cw type system contains several constructs that reduce the impedance mismatch between OO and XSD by introducing concepts such as anonymous types, choices [aka union types], nullable types and constructing classes from XML literals into the .NET world. The ability to process such strongly typed XML objects using rich query constructs based on SQL's select operator will also be covered.

  5. A Comparison of Microsoft's C# Programming Language to Sun Microsystems' Java Programming Language 2nd edition : About 3 years ago I wrote a C# vs. Java comparison while I was still in school which has become the most popular comparison of both languages on the Web. I still get mail on a semi-regular basis from people who've been able to transition between both languages due to the information in my comparison document. I plan to update this article to reflect the proposed changes announced in Java 1.5 and C# 2.0

On top of this I've been approached twice in the past few months about writing a technology book. Based on watching the experiences of others my gut feel is that it isn't worth the effort. I'd be interested in any feedback on the above article ideas or even suggestions for new articles that you'd be interested in seeing on MSDN or XML.com from me.