Web authoring and XML
XML is a supercharged version of HTML that is intended to be more semantic and browser independent. While the scheme is a bit more demanding to learn, XML has more stablility and functionality. Martin Bryan does a good job of explaining what the Language is and what one can acomplish with it. I found the way he introducted DTD (document type defination) better than most of the resources I have encountered. While the tags may appear a bit different, they still serve the same function ad HTML in the same manner. One the major differences of XML is user defined tags (as in create your own) that is not really possible with HTLM.
A Survey of XML Standards,
The second document is a wealth of information on the XML "standards". I have bookmarked a number of these resources as reminders of information that comes in handy when using XML. Like most any language both HTML and XML are always evolving and W3C the commission with oversight of the language keeps their web site updated.
Extending Your Markup
The last document really has working examples of the XML code. Another way to see the code in action is to open a browser, select a web page and go to Page source under the View tab. By reading the active code and referencing unfamiliar elements with the tutorials and documentation it isn't very hard to learn new what functions the unfamiliar components represent.
Overall, these documents and tutorials will enable the beginner to at least get a "feel" for the structure of the language, and with a bit of an adventurous spirit one can experiment ones way into a comfort zone with the content. Just remember that to learn a language takes time and attention to the little details. As with HTML, if a tag is not closed with the punctuation there will be an error. Anyone can write code starting with a simple set of notepad tags. To be compliant, the code must conform to the scheme conventions.
A Survey of XML Standards,
The second document is a wealth of information on the XML "standards". I have bookmarked a number of these resources as reminders of information that comes in handy when using XML. Like most any language both HTML and XML are always evolving and W3C the commission with oversight of the language keeps their web site updated.
Extending Your Markup
The last document really has working examples of the XML code. Another way to see the code in action is to open a browser, select a web page and go to Page source under the View tab. By reading the active code and referencing unfamiliar elements with the tutorials and documentation it isn't very hard to learn new what functions the unfamiliar components represent.
Overall, these documents and tutorials will enable the beginner to at least get a "feel" for the structure of the language, and with a bit of an adventurous spirit one can experiment ones way into a comfort zone with the content. Just remember that to learn a language takes time and attention to the little details. As with HTML, if a tag is not closed with the punctuation there will be an error. Anyone can write code starting with a simple set of notepad tags. To be compliant, the code must conform to the scheme conventions.
3 comments:
Hey, your comments have helped makethings a little clearer for me, thanks!
Thanks for explaining XML a bit in your post - can you recommend any other resources for the XML uninitiated?
Your comment of XML being browser independent really cleared some of the confusion for me. I'm still having some difficulty differentiating XML and HtML so this helps a lot, thanks.
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