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E Xtensible Markup Language...
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| XML In Brief | Web Resources |

XML In Brief

You may have heard that XML, the relatively new Markup Language, will revolutionize the Web, and that XML has the potential to reshape the way data is exchanged over the Internet. Extensible Markup Language (XML for short) is a new language designed to make the information self-describing. The central point about XML is it's "extensibility" -the ability to create whatever tags you like/need in a document.

Most of today's web sites function is more than just a fancy fax machine that sends documents to anyone who asks. HTML is the dominator of today's Internet Languages. Although HTML is the most successful electronic-publishing language ever invented, it only describes how a Web Browser should arrange text, images and other graphic constructs on a page. HTML tags only say how the information is to be displayed. The tags do not convey anything about the information being displayed.

The simple solution, in theory for this problem could be to use tags that say what the information is, not what it looks like. XML makes it possible by allowing anyone to design a new, custom-built language. It allows you to give meaningful tags to the information. Ofcourse, the meanings of your tags make sense to other people when you write some prose to explain them and makes sense to computers when you write some software to process them.

To understand, imagine a situation wherein you have got the information you wanted from the other site and want to get the fine-tuning of the same information. In today's situation, this is only possible by requesting the server again by narrowing your search criteria. When your computer has all the power to process the information it has got, why can't it fine-tune it insted of requestibg the server again. Imagine how much internet traffic every such request takes and multiply it by few million Web users. So XML in combination with Java not only makes this this information exchange a meaningful but also reduces the traffic by making use of the power of your Computer.

Before you abandon HTML, find out what XML really means for the future of Web building.
Get started right away.


Book Picks

XML - The Annotated Specifications

Xml in Action

Xml in Action

Xml in Action

Web Resources

Introduction to XML A good introduction for the absolute beginner by Mark Johnson.
About XML Everything you need to know about XML
Microsoft's support of XML From msdn online Web Workshop.
The W3C XML Web page The source of the XML specification and related specifications
XML.COM An online magazine covering XML

| XML In Brief | Web Resources |

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Last Revision: Nov 14, 1999 e-mail: giridhar@mail.com ©1998 by Giridhar Pottepalem