Service Station

The October issue of MSDN Magazine just showed up. It marks a significant change for me. Josh describes it in his Editor's Note:

When we started to cover XML on a regular basis in The XML Files column, it was still an emerging technology. Aaron Skonnard has tracked its intricacies for years, providing a broad picture of the places where XML can be used and the APIs that help you use it. However, over the years XML has been so widely accepted as part of the basic infrastructure that it's not the most interesting part of the story anymore.

SOA or service-oriented architecture - a broad term that describes systems that are built around loosely coupled software - is the interesting part. Although the term itself can describe just about anything, we normally achieve SOA through ...Web services. ...

As part of our commitment to covering topics of relevance to our readers, Aaron will be writing about SOA in our new Service Station column. Technically it's not a "new" offering; rather, it's the logical extension of his popular XML Files column.

This pretty much says it all. In the beginning, my column focused almost exclusively on core XML topics such as XML namespaces, XPath, XSLT, MSXML, System.Xml, etc. Over the past few years, my focus has naturally shifted away from these topics towards emerging SO and Web services concepts. It's been a natural evolution, indicative of my work and interests. Hence, the new name is appropriate. Dare's XML Developer Center is where you should look for continued coverage on core XML topics and System.Xml.

Although I'm sad to let go of The XML Files, I'm excited about manning the Service Station.