Hi Paul, I hadn't seen that before, however I have been a long-time advocate of adding XML to the DSPF and PRTF definition options. The two options we have today are DDS and UIM and both are dead languages and difficult to use effectively right out of the box (lots of experience required).

I don't see any value at all in using XML for database files however. SQL DDL already has that covered and is the standard. I never use DDS for database, and haven't for years. I am not sure what they're advocating by including it in this so called standard; (isn't it a proposal until it becomes a standard?)

Having been in meeting upon meeting with IBM and many of these same people, time and time again, I do know that they tend to become group-myopic; While individually I'd say 80 percent are very strong, technically and well-read what happens in those meetings is one person without any knowledge in something will say something and since the rest of the group may not know much about it or doesn't want to offend anyone, they go along with it. And since everybody loves everybody, nobody says "Hey, we are already doing that, why bother?" because that might insult the person that brought it up, and we can't have hurt feelings now, can we.

For me, I love the line "okay, make me a liar" from "Contact" which is a quote from Carl Sagan. It is what people who want to understand something will say, vs someone who just wants to be right even if they are wrong. The later often have their feelings hurt when someone, metaphorically, "makes them a liar". It is not saying that person is lying, it is saying "sorry, you are not correct, try again". I call it learning, and embrace and enjoy it, while others tend to be a bit too thin-skinned about what they know or don't know.

Agree on the DDL and SQL remark, no need to cover that by XML. If the aim is to get a more modern replacement for PRTF and DSPF, it seems an interesting development. We'll see if it manages to become a standard in time.