EVENT NEWS: Extreme Markup Details Announced

["Laura Walker" <laura.walker@oasis-open.org>]

From:
Pete Janhunen
Vice President of Communications
703/519-8190
pjanhunen@gca.org




How Far Can We Push Markup Languages?
Test the limits at GCA's new technical conference: Extreme Markup 2000

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (27 June 2000) - Strap on your helmet and push yourself to
the edge. Graphic Communications Association (GCA) today announced details
of Extreme Markup Languages 2000, a new technical conference focused on the
abstractions that underlie the family of markup languages, including
white-hot XML and Topic Maps.

Extreme 2000 will be held from August 15-18, 2000 in Montréal, Canada, and
will be preceded by two days of in-depth tutorials (August 13-14). Learn all
the details and register on-line at www.extrememarkup.com, or call GCA at
703/519-8160 for a copy of the preliminary program.

"Extreme is not for the faint of heart," commented conference co-chair
Tommie Usdin of Mulberry Technologies, Inc. "It's a highly technical
conference that concentrates on the evolving abstractions that underlie
modern information management solutions, how those abstractions enhance
human productivity, how they are being applied today, and how they'll be
leveraged tomorrow."

"We're looking at abstract and concrete information models, systems built on
them, and the software that exploits them," according to co-chair Steve
Newcomb of TechnoTeacher, Inc. "Of course we'll cover XML, but we'll also
focus on SGML, XSL, Topic Maps, XLink, schemas, query languages, and other
markup-related topics."

Extreme is an unabashedly hard-core conference for technically-oriented
members of the information interchange community: a place where information
management and markup professionals can gather to learn from each other,
exchange ideas and form alliances, challenge their preconceptions, argue,
and increase the range of their knowledge and skills. Extreme provides a
unique forum where technical ideas can be communicated, explained, examined,
and refined.

Conference papers have undergone extensive peer review - and revision based
on that review - to ensure the highest technical quality. Eight slots on the
program have been saved for late-breaking news: material that is developing
and changing too rapidly for the results to be reported in time for peer
review.

Extreme reaches the philosophical heights (markup and semantics, the
limitations of the descriptive/procedural distinction, and what we lose by
modeling data as an ordered hierarchy of content objects); plumbs the
practical depths (using UML to define XML document types, XSL stylesheet
generation, managing web relationships); and embraces the hottest topics
(what is and should be the relationship between Topic Maps and RDF).
Overviews for managers and introductions for beginners are absent by design.

"Some of the Extreme material is seriously geek-to-geek," admitted Usdin.

GCA is the leading global membership organization for advancing the
processes of information interoperability and dissemination of knowledge.
GCA's more than 300 member companies represent all segments of the
information technology, publishing, and electronic commerce industries. For
more information on GCA conferences and programs, visit us at www.gca.org or
contact Vice President of Communications Pete Janhunen at 703/519-8190 or at
pjanhunen@gca.org.

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