Water is a new object-oriented, dynamic language that dramatically simplifies building Web services and applications. It unifies the worlds of OO and Web Services. XML becomes more than an extensible markup language -- XML turns into an executable modeling language.

During the seminar, Mike Plusch will create at least 10 services and applications from scratch without using any GUI tools. He'll talk about some of the problems of XML -- such as verbosity and ambiguity -- and show how ConciseXML and Water solve those problems.

Water uses an XML-based syntax called ConciseXML which is compatible with XML 1.0 and is as concise as popular programming languages. Water represents the first Pure Web Services environment where everything is a Web Service and has an XML representation. Water makes Web Services and XML live up to their promise.

Water adheres to a "Learn Once, Use Everywhere" philosophy where data, logic, and presentation are manipulated and represented in a consistent way. Water is an All-Level Language because it can be used for both high-level and low-level tasks.

The language specification is openly documented and a free runtime is available for commercial and non-commercial use. The Water runtime can be deployed in any or all tiers of a standard Java environment -- running as an applet, servlet, or stand-alone application. Water can be used for building high-performance multi-tier applications through the caching of both data and logic.

Water is particularly suited for building high-level languages. Water has started to be used by independent software vendors (ISVs) to build custom languages for specific problem domains.

Water supports a flexible Object-Oriented security model called Capability Security. This is the same security model used in secure operating systems.

The design of Water was influenced by many other languages such as Scheme, Java, HTML, Lisp, Self, Smalltalk, Basic, ML, and Dylan. Water has the power of Lisp, and the ease of use of Basic.

The talk is open to the public. After the meeting there will be an own-pay dinner, possibly with the speaker, at a nearby restaurant. Directions to the restaurant will be given at the meeting.