Attack of the killer accountants.
The XBRL [eXtensible Business Reporting Language] spec describes how the parts of an XBRL instance interrelate, using state-of-the-art XML technologies such as XLink and XPointer. And it talks at length about the syntax and semantics of “taxonomies” that abstractly define chunks of financial reports. No sign of any actual financial data, though. And the link to a sample page at xbrl.org, returned a “404 Not Found.” I'm not surprised. The poor bloke whose job it was to produce that sample must have suffered a polymorphic recursive brain meltdown. [Full story at InfoWorld.com]
Since I am not, myself, an actual financial expert (as Dave Barry might say), I worried that I might have gone overboard here. But the responses I've gotten so far allay that fear. One suggests that XBRL, if successful, will “create a master race of accountants / XML consultants.” How's that for a B-movie concept! … [Jon's Radio]