James Clark (born ) is a software engineer and creator of various
open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. ...
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
specifications.
Education and early life
Clark was born in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and educated at
Charterhouse School
(God having given, I gave)
, established =
, closed =
, type = Public school Independent day and boarding school
, religion = Church of England
, president ...
and
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, ...
where he studied
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
and
Philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
.
Career
Clark has lived in
Bangkok
Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populati ...
,
Thailand
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
since , and is permanent Thai resident. He owns a company called Thai Open Source Software Center, which provides him a legal framework for his open-source activities. Clark is the author and creator of groff, as well as an XML editing mode for
GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is a free software text editor. It was created by GNU Project founder Richard Stallman, based on the Emacs editor developed for Unix operating systems. GNU Emacs has been a central component of the GNU project and a flagship project ...
.
Work on XML
Clark served as technical lead of the
working group
A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...
that developed XML—notably contributing the self-closing, empty element tag syntax, and the name XML. His contributions to XML are cited in dozens of books on the subject. Clark is the author or co-author of a number of influential specifications and implementations, including:
*
DSSSL
The Document Style Semantics and Specification Language (DSSSL) is an international standard developed to provide stylesheets for SGML documents.
DSSSL consists of two parts: a tree transformation process that can be used to manipulate the tree ...
Expat
An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to educated professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either ...
: An open-source XML
parser
Parsing, syntax analysis, or syntactic analysis is the process of analyzing a string of symbols, either in natural language, computer languages or data structures, conforming to the rules of a formal grammar. The term ''parsing'' comes from Lat ...
.
* XSLT: XSL Transformations, a part of the XSL family. He was the editor of the XSLT 1.0 specification.
*
XPath
XPath (XML Path Language) is an expression language designed to support the query or transformation of XML documents. It was defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and can be used to compute values (e.g., strings, numbers, or Boolean v ...
: Path language for addressing XML documents; used by XSLT but also as a free-standing language. He was the editor of the XPath 1.0 specification.
* TREX: Tree regular experessions for XML (TREX) is a schema language for
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. T ...
. TREX has been merged with
RELAX
Relax may refer to:
Aviation
* Roland Z-120 Relax, a German ultralight aircraft design for the 120 kg class
Music Albums
* ''Relax'' (Blank & Jones album), 2003
* ''Relax'' (Das Racist album), 2011
Songs
* "Relax" (song), a 1983 song by Fran ...
to create
RELAX NG
In computing, RELAX NG (REgular LAnguage for XML Next Generation) is a schema language for XML—a RELAX NG schema specifies a pattern for the structure and content of an XML document. A RELAX NG schema is itself an XML document but RELAX NG also ...
.
*
RELAX NG
In computing, RELAX NG (REgular LAnguage for XML Next Generation) is a schema language for XML—a RELAX NG schema specifies a pattern for the structure and content of an XML document. A RELAX NG schema is itself an XML document but RELAX NG also ...
: an XML Schema language, with both an explicit XML syntax and a compact syntax. Clark was critical of the
XML Schema (W3C)
XSD (XML Schema Definition), a recommendation of the World Wide Web Consortium ( W3C), specifies how to formally describe the elements in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) document. It can be used by programmers to verify each piece of item con ...
language (also known as XSD) and developed RELAX NG in response
* Jing: An implementation of RELAX NG.
* Clark Notation: A way to express an XML Name in a compact way
*
Ballerina
A ballet dancer ( it, ballerina fem.; ''ballerino'' masc.) is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on ye ...
: Ballerina is an open source general-purpose programming language for application programmers.
Clark is listed as a member of the working group that developed the
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
Stream processing
In computer science, stream processing (also known as event stream processing, data stream processing, or distributed stream processing) is a programming paradigm which views data streams, or sequences of events in time, as the central input and ou ...
API for XML (
StAX
Streaming API for XML (StAX) is an application programming interface ( API) to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community.
Traditionally, XML APIs are either:
* DOM based - the entire document is read i ...
) JSR 173 at the JCP.
Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA)
From until late , Clark worked for Thailand's Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA), to promote open source technologies and
open standards
An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definitio ...
in the country. This work included pushing the Thai
localization
Localization or localisation may refer to:
Biology
* Localization of function, locating psychological functions in the brain or nervous system; see Linguistic intelligence
* Localization of sensation, ability to tell what part of the body is a ...
of
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org (OOo), commonly known as OpenOffice, is a discontinued open-source office suite. Active successor projects include LibreOffice (the most actively developed), Apache OpenOffice, Collabora Online (enterprise ready LibreOffice) a ...
office suite and the Mozilla Firefox web browser, along with other open source software packages.
Other projects at SIPA include:
* Chantra: An open source Thai project with programs for Windows, like the
OpenCD
The now defunct OpenCD project aimed to introduce users of Microsoft Windows to the benefits of free and open-source software (FOSS). It is a CD image that can freely be downloaded and copied. The OpenCD team screened programs for stability, qual ...
project.
* Suriyan GNU/Linux A user-friendly "instant server" system for small and medium-sized companies not to be confused with SIPA's new, unrelated project with a similar name, Suriyan Linux Live CD.''