XOM API for Processing XML with Java

["Michael Kay" <mike AT saxonica.com>]

> I fail to see how disconnecting user demand from developer 
> obligation can improve the quality of software or accelerate 
> the overall advances in the world of software and information 
> technology.

Yes, I was surprised by this effect, and I wouldn't have expected it until I
started doing it. But having worked for 20 years in a more conventional
mainframe software world, I'm convinced its true. Of course, user demand
isn't disconnected from quality: users have a choice, they can use your
product or someone else's. It tends to mean that you're motivated by the
feedback from the most discerning users rather than those with the deepest
pockets, and that the feedback comes from real users undistorted by chains
of communication between their purchasing department and your marketing
department. 

Users sometimes ask you to do good things and they sometimes ask you to do
bad things. You still get the feedback, but you can avoid doing the bad
things, such as deviating from standards in order to gain a short-term
performance advantage, or introducing a feature that's actually a workaround
to a bug in someone else's product, or forking the source code to make it
run in two different environments. Many times in my career as a mainframe
software designer we did bad things to the software because the people with
the money wanted things that were not in the best long-term interests of the
community as a whole (and very often not even in the best interests of that
particular user). Forking the source code is a classic example.

I remember a project where a bank had implemented a very early XML-based
system using a Microsoft parser that predated the XML spec and allowed </>
as an end tag. Microsoft updated their parser when the spec was finalised to
remove this feature. The bank complained and said it would cost them a
million pounds or so to change their application or delay its go-live date.
Microsoft stood firm. They were right to do so. An awful lot of suppliers
would have bent to that pressure (certainly my employers, who were the prime
contractor for the system, would have done so). So yes, I believe that the
ability to resist user pressure can often improve the overall quality of the
software.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/