hi all,
where is XML going next? next 2 years? next 5 years?
any XML technologies I need to concentrate on to make myself more XML proficient and marketable?
Michael, the same question applies to XSLT. where you think XSLT is going the next few years? is Transformation a must have talent to make it in the next XML/XSLT generation?
any ideas would help. I believe in planning the next years :)

bill

Big questions like this are probably best asked on the xml-dev list. People will probably go off at all sorts of tangents.

I have a very bad track record at predicting the future. I don't expect to see radical change in the XML scene over the next few years. XQuery may or may not become big; XForms similarly. I'd like to see standardisation of pipeline processing but that doesn't mean it will happen.

I think the XSLT language will remain pretty stable after 2.0; I expect there will be expansion in function libraries, but I'm not sure where these are likely to come from. There are one or two "big ideas" I would still like to see as language enhancements, for example higher order functions, but I don't think there's enough momentum in the W3C process to make it happen for a while.

As for marketable skills, I've never approached my personal development in that post-Thatcherite way. I learn things either because they look interesting or because I need them on the next project.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
Author, XSLT Programmer's Reference and XPath 2.0 Programmer's Reference