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Nearby: People of the Architecture Domain.
W3C leads the evolution of the web, empowering individuals, increasing social and economic efficiency, and exploiting the power of computing in our everyday lives. Exploiting that power is the mission of the W3C Architecture Domain.
The Architecture Domain has the mission to maintain and extend some of the Core technologies of the World Wide Web, including URI/IRI, XML, DOM, Web Services, and Internationalization. The W3C Architecture technologies enable people to exchange data on the Web every day from the protocol level, with HTTP and SOAP, and to the application level, with XML, XML Schema, or WSDL. It also includes technologies for data manipulation, with XSL Transformations, DOM, or XML Query.
Our focus is to improve the stability of the existing platform, with our work on XML, Web Services, or Internationalization. This includes interoperability between world wide applications, and extending their capabilities.
From the introduction of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity Statement:
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a simple, flexible text format derived from SGML (ISO 8879). The W3C created, developed and continues to maintain the XML specification. The W3C is also the primary center for developing other cross-industry specifications that are based on XML. Some of these are being done within the XML Activity, such as XML Query and XML Schema, and some are being done in other W3C Activities, such as Web Services, SVG and XHTML. The XML Activity tries to keep a balance between maintaining stability and backwards compatibility, making improvements that help to encourage interoperability, and bringing new communities into the world of XML.
Read more on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) Activity home page.
Liam Quin is the Activity Lead.
The Activity includes these groups:
From the introduction of the Internationalization Activity Statement:
The goal of the Internationalization (I18n) Activity is to ensure that W3C's formats and protocols are open to all of the world's languages, writing systems, character codes and local conventions.
I18n advises W3C Working Groups, reviews W3C publications, coordinates with the Unicode Technical Committee, the IETF, ISO committees, and the localization industry. I18n increases awareness of internationalization issues via conferences, workshops and articles. I18n produces specifications such as the Character Model for the World Wide Web, Web Services Internationalization Usage Scenarios, and Ruby Annotation Markup. I18n provides upfront input to Working Groups and reviews Last Call Working Drafts on a wide range of topics, including Unicode character normalization, international typographic requirements, script issues in text-to-speech implementations, internationalization and localization requirements for schemas, usage scenarios and requirements for the internationalization of Web services, implementation of international resource identifiers, and many more.
For the curious, "I18n" is shorthand for the first, last, and 18 middle characters in the word "Internationalization."
Read more on the Internationalization Activity home page.
Richard Ishida is the Activity Lead.
The Activity includes these groups:
From the introduction of the Web Services Activity Statement:
Web services provide a standard means of interoperating between different software applications, running on a variety of platforms and/or frameworks. Web services are characterized by their great interoperability and extensibility, as well as their machine-processable descriptions thanks to the use of XML. They can be combined in a loosely coupled way in order to achieve complex operations. Programs providing simple services can interact with each other in order to deliver sophisticated added-value services.
The W3C Web Services Activity is designing the infrastructure, defining the architecture and creating the core technologies for Web services. The SOAP 1.2 XML-based messaging framework became a W3C Recommendation in June 2003 and the SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) in January 2005.
Here is a comprehensive list of Recommendations pertaining to the W3C Web Services Activity:
- XML Protocol Working Group:
- SOAP Version 1.2 Part 0: Primer (Second Edition)
- SOAP Version 1.2 Part 1: Messaging Framework (Second Edition)
- SOAP Version 1.2 Part 2: Adjuncts (Second Edition)
- SOAP Version 1.2 Specification Assertions and Test Collection (Second Edition)
- XML-binary Optimized Packaging
- SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism
- Resource Representation SOAP Header Block
- Web Services Description Working Group:
- Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 0: Primer
- Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 1: Core Language
- Web Services Description Language (WSDL) Version 2.0 Part 2: Adjuncts
- Web Services Addressing Working Group:
- Web Services Addressing 1.0 - Core
- Web Services Addressing 1.0 - SOAP Binding
- Web Services Addressing 1.0 - Metadata
- Semantic Annotations for WSDL Working Group:
- Semantic Annotations for WSDL and XML Schema
- Web Services Policy Working Group:
- Web Services Policy 1.5 - Framework
- Web Services Policy 1.5 - Attachment
Read more on the Web Services Activity home page.
Yves Lafon is the Activity Lead.
The Activity includes these groups:
One of the key roles W3C plays in leading the evolution of the web is stimulating collaboration between research and industry. The architecture team invites you to explore these sections of the web and let us know if you have something to contribute.
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