I think most of you guys on this forum already know of my long-standing gripes with the .NOT framework in general, along with it's baggage of #'s. The fact is that M$ are trying to do something much worse than displace J2EE, there trying to re-write the standards.
Fortunately J2EE is extremely popular and has a huge following, one .NOT wishes it had. Personally I think that most developers engaged in J2EE style projects, in other words, enterprise level, middle-ware, web service style operations actually respect standards. The certainly wouldn't have got were they are without them.
M$ XML savvy!?!? Don't make me laugh. M$ view of XML is a pretty twisted affair. They've managed to turn an open standard into a pseudo-proprietary one in Office 2003 and now this. X# I read was mean to support in-built database manipulation with SQL. Again M$ are behind the times. Yes SQL / relational databases are the most common form factor at the moment but there certainly not bleeding edge, I would say that's the realm of XND's (XML Native Database) like Berkeley DB XML, Exists, Xindice, Tamino etc... again very much in the J2EE / open source realm.
So the only reason I can think of why M$ really invents these hashed up (get the pun?) standards is pure and simple, control.
Well Mr Gates I don't want to be controlled by a monster that causes more problems than it solves. I for one shall be sticking to the standards, not only that but we the J2EE / Open source community shall create superior products that you can only aspire to. As we have done up until now.
M$ continued belligerence, pushing against the flow (think about how odd M$ sticks out as) will in the end destroy them I'm sure
[ October 07, 2003: Message edited by: Zardoz ]