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Introduction
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Pssst… hey buddy! Want an easy way to make your data easily available in all future formats and in a way other businesses can easily understand? Then read on!
Over the years, XML has quietly built up quite a head of steam. I say quietly because unlike Java or HTML, XML has nowhere near the level of hysteria surrounding it, but it is possibly a far more important technology.
While HTML has enabled businesses and individuals to make their knowledge, data, resources (and of course advertising) available to the online world via the Internet at a very low cost, not much thought was put into structuring that data. Think about it, with over 56 million places to visit on the Internet and with each website having perhaps hundreds of web pages, there is a tremendous amount of information out there! Most of it is a complete mash of data, images, colours and occasionally an applet or ActiveX object. Really, hardly any of it is easily searchable and almost none of it can be used in your VB or ASP applications as a reliable data source.
So, there is clearly a need for someone or something to structure this data and enable it to become more valuable. Enter the XML-wielding programmers. Their assignment (should they choose to accept it) is to make this information easily understandable by structuring and ordering it. This will enable computers to understand all this data.
Take a moment to think about what that means. If XML can enable systems that are structured and extensible, which other systems can easily understand and work with - what effect will this have on computing? Already, using XML, systems can reliably work with deep hierarchies of information and even hierarchies that are constantly changing in both structure and in appearance!
Suddenly, complex or changing data that until now was the reserve of humans, will become standard tasks for XML-aware systems. This will result in a drastic reduction in the amount of time required for systems to process complex information.
As XML enables this ordering and understanding of data, substantial improvements in productivity will occur. Another consequence will be an increase in the level of automation of communications between businesses. Any business that takes the time to structure their data (using XML) will be able to communicate with other businesses with more ease than those who do not.
Having made these extravagant claims, let’s consider all the ways in which XML enables and improves the life of a developer.
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