XML And Its Future

XML is quickly becoming the universal protocol for transferring informationfrom site to site via HTTP. Whereas, the HTML will continue tobe the language for displaying documents on the Internet, the developerswill start using the power of XML to transmit, exchange, andmanipulate data using XML.XML offers a very simple solution to a complex problem. It offers astandard format for structuring data or information in a self-defineddocument format. This way, the data are kept independent of the processesthat will consume the data. Obviously, the concept behind XML isnothing new. XML happens to be a proper subset of a massive specifi-cation named SGML developed by W3C in 1986. The W3C began todevelop the standard for XML in 1996 with the motivation that XMLwould be simpler to use than SGML but that it will have more rigid structurethan HTML. Since then, many software vendors have implementedvarious features of XML technologies. For example, Ariba has built itsentire B2B system architecture based on XML, many Web servers (suchas Weblogic Server) utilize XML specifications for configuring variousserver related parameters, Oracle has included necessary parsers andutilities to develop business applications in its 8i/9i suites, and finally, the.NET has also embraced the XML technology.XML contains self-defined data in document format. Hence it isplatform independent. It is also easy to transmit a document from a siteto another site easily via HTTP. However, the applications of XML do notnecessarily have to be limited to conventional Internet applications only.It can be used to communicate and exchange information in other contexts,too. For example, a VB client can call a remote function by passingthe function name and parameter values using a XML document. Theserver may return the result via a subsequent XML document. Basically,that is the technology behind the SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).what u think about it?

as am studying XML now a days so i would like u to share u'r knowlege about it...Am also trying to make the tutrial for it for beginers.. Hope it'll work...btw u'r knowlege abt it will be higly appreciated. I want u 2 help me understabding it..

Mainly as an exercise in XML, I am running two Web sites, both pretty popular even if one is a little silly, off of XML databases. There are three important things I have learned, aside from how to write XML and to transform it into something convenient and readable:1. There seems to be no good free GUI which would allow for the convenient use of XML databases as general-purpose databases on a desktop machine.2. If using XML to run a Web site, the transforms have to be server-side. Client-side handling by browsers is too inconsistent.3. Current XML is too slow to allow it to run Web sites off of databases of any significant size. I have seen others discuss this problem, and they are talking about a future of compiled XML. It would probably be a wonderful idea, but first I want to see it happen, and then I would want to see if it is cross-platform portable.

2.  If using XML to run a Web site, the transforms have to be server-side.  Client-side handling by browsers is too inconsistent.

Internet Explorer's client-sided transformation from XML with XSL to HTML is perfect! And it's very simple. IE is always critisized to not fit the standards, well I critisize the other browsers, why don't they finally implement a nice working xml-parsing engine which makes it possible to use xsl-stylesheets, and so let the transformation take place on the client?

Microsoft always "powered" XML, right from the beginning it seemed to be kind of part of their policy. Meanwhile MS Office is xml-based, and there's many xml-files in the system directories of Windows Xp. The next MS Office version will come with a new XML-filetype, I'm very curious what it will do to manifest Microsoft's power.

As said here before, the great thing about XML ist that the applications of XML do not necessarily have to be limited to conventional Internet applications, that's where XML's great potential lies. XML is everywhere and everyday, you just don't see it. Big transport systems like railway stations, airplanes and so on are xml-based. If you look on the big departures board of your local railway station the data you see are coming from the same XML-file that the website of the railway company uses. That's the great 'universality' of XML.

Internet Explorer's client-sided transformation from XML with XSL to HTML is perfect! And it's very simple. IE is always critisized to not fit the standards, well I critisize the other browsers, why don't they finally implement a nice working xml-parsing engine which makes it possible to use xsl-stylesheets, and so let the transformation take place on the client?

I agree that of the browsers I tested, Internet Explorer handles the transforms best, but from the Webmaster's point of view, it doesn't make much of a difference who is to blame. As long as a significant percentage of Web users are using browsers which don't handle the transforms well, as Webmasters we just can't use client-side transforms. Unless we want to play childish games to prove a point, at the expense of our own content.

As said here before, the great thing about XML ist that the applications of XML do not necessarily have to be limited to conventional Internet applications, that's where XML's great potential lies. XML is everywhere and everyday, you just don't see it. Big transport systems like railway stations, airplanes and so on are xml-based. If you look on the big departures board of your local railway station the data you see are coming from the same XML-file that the website of the railway company uses. That's the great 'universality' of XML

XML is pretty simple and very flexible. It has many uses yet to be discovered,
and we are only beginning to scratch the surface of its potential. It is the foundation
for a great many standards yet to come, providing a common language that
different computer systems can use to exchange data with one another. As each
industry group comes up with standards for what it wants to say, computers will
begin to link to each other in ways previously unimaginable.

Microsoft always "powered" XML, right from the beginning it seemed to be kind of part of their policy. Meanwhile MS Office is xml-based, and there's many xml-files in the system directories of Windows Xp. The next MS Office version will come with a new XML-filetype, I'm very curious what it will do to manifest Microsoft's power

Ye am also waiting anxiously . Lets See wht comes out from it