This hype cycle was at the very start of my career. “Java and XML! Portable code and portable data!” was the big slogan. I took a course on XML, DTD, XSD, XLST

This hype cycle was at the very start of my career. “Java and XML! Portable code and portable data!” was the big slogan. I took a course on XML, DTD, XSD, XLST, JAXB, etc. It was everywhere. There were tools specifically to design XSD schemas, so that you could generate classes for them using JAXB and validate the data. SOAP and XML Web Services were everywhere, using WSDL which was a glorified XSD. The WSDL would allow you to generate a client library and validate the data prior to making an API call. It was pretty useful and I still prefer it to REST, despite its warts. Such a distraction though. All of the obsession with perfected static types and schemas got in the way of any productive work. When I discovered how much more I could accomplish with a dynamic language and a SQL database I never looked back.