HTML

Format driven

WHO AM I?

To help me get in the mood for XML, my details shown below are fed from this XML file. This means I now have them stored to use again and again - pretty cool hey!

Name:

Student No:

Award:

Interests:

Aspirations:

Ensure interchangeable data with a DTD

Keep your content fresh using RSS feed

Transform XML files with XSLT

What Is XML And Why Is It Important?

XML is short for Extensible Markup Language and is a specification developed by the W3C. At first glance it looks a lot like HTML, but it is much more than that because it allows you to design your own personal language.

Like we have witnessed the power of CSS to remove formatting clutter from HTML pages, the next logical step seems to be to remove repeated or changeable data. XML has the potential to provide this long needed standardization of data handling, and yet has near endless possibilities for individual customization. It allows you to define your own custom tags then use them to format your documents, these tags can potentially contain just about anything you desire. This standardized structure then enables interchange of data between applications and organizations - in theory providing the power to handle information on a grand scale.

Being stricter than HTML - XML is a move away from sloppy coding practices and sets a higher standard for web developers, and while it is early days for the technology (many of it's features are not yet widely supported) - it is likely that we will see a shift towards XML in our web pages sooner rather than later

What's On This Site?

Well I have to tell you that I am still an XML Leaner myself and like the language of XML - it's stil early early days, but included here are the techniques I have been exposed to at the time of writing this.

Ensure interchangeable data with a DTD
Sharing XML files or administering data to them can be made 'safer' by defining the legal building blocks using a Document Type Definition. This page shows an XML file with an external DTD being processed using JavaScript to bind data to html elements (viewable with Internet Explorer 5.0 and higher).

Keep your content fresh using RSS feed
RSS Stands for Really Simple Syndication and allows XML data to be fed live to web sites. Here is an example of an RSS feed from the BBC web site being processed by an ASP script.

Transform XML data with XSLT
See how XML files can be rendered for viewing directly in the browser using the standard known as Existensible Style sheet Language Transformations.

XML

Content driven