With all of the discussion on XML-Dev initiated by Simon St Laurent about the ten year aniversary of XML and the question, is it time for a new review, I have an odd thought given we are comparing the last experience with SGML's struggles and the ease with which XML was sold.
Is there a dark star phase for technologies and ideas? I tend to think of SGML as being sold to publishers and industries whereas XML was sold to programmers. Do standards or technologies endure a phase where the amount of combative energy among the users of different types is such that there is insufficient momentum for it to collapse and fuse until a primary group emerges or is identified which can instantly coalesce and create the required amount of cooling for the collapse?
What are the standards evolution analogs of neutrinos, photons, and electrons?
Humans are the emergent controls of their own evolution. Their intelligence is the fuel and until the coalescence, they cannot shine. The question is, are our conflicts, our resistance to our commonality, our desperate clutching of our self-identity, the dark matter?
It's a fun model.
