XML Schema 1.1 = XSDL

after exactly one year of deliberation behind closed doors, there finally is a new draft of XML Schema 1.1, and this time it even has an official acronym: XSDL for XML Schema Definition Language! it strikes me as a bit odd that the language now has a name that has not been used anywhere before, i would have thought the very popular term XSD or the less popular term WXS would have been more obvious choices. but hey, now there is an official name for it, and that's good.

i will write more about XSDL 1.1 (i have to get used to writing that...) and its general approach of adding even more to an already insanely complex and idiosyncratic specification later, but i first want to simply state that i am really happy that XML Schema now has a new name.

i never liked XML Schema's presumptuous name, because naming an instance of a class of things with the same name as the class itself is not a smart thing to do. naming your dog dog or your cat cat might be funny, but it also is terribly confusing when talking about dogs and the dog dog (i think you get my point...). trying to explain to newcomers that XML Schema is an XML schema language (and that capitalization is essential in this case) always was a nice excuse to talk a bit a about language and naming and names in general, but in the end it definitely did not help anybody to more easily understand what is going on in this world of badly named things.

so i will stop calling XML Schema XML Schema as of today, and will retroactively also call XML Schema 1.0 XSDL from now on, even though officially the name change only affects version 1.1 of the language. can we please get a third edition of XML Schema 1.0 that officially renames itself to XSDL?

[[ while reading through XSDL 1.1, i just discovered that XSDL 1.1 refers to XML Schema 1.0 as XSDL 1.0, so i think it is ok to do so even though XML Schema 1.0 never officially called itself XSDL 1.0. whatever its official name is, it is definitely better than calling in Hitler or Stalin. (sorry for that, but i just read an article about the weird names venezuelan parents often choose for their children.) ]]