Ted Neward writes...

Ahh, components. Anybody heard this story before? I remember hearing it with objects, then components, now services.... Look, we've had ways to partition our code up before, and we've failed to take advantage of it. Note that I say that very deliberately: we failed. Not "the industry hype wore off", or "the technology couldn't deliver", but "we failed to use the technology as it was meant to be used". We've had our chances to build apps and systems out of constituent parts. The problem is, we've never done it. Or at least, not on any recognizable scale. What makes you think this time around will be any different, Harry?

Well, this time we have XML. 8^)