Burks (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bult.104/full)
Thanks, Megan and Katie, for the link to this.
I think that if I more fully understood HTML, XML would be easier to understand. I understand that it is a near-universally accepted language that allows most systems and computers to interpret HTML formatting. If I’ve missed the ball on this, please correct me.
XML http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-stand1.html
This site provided so much technical information that I, like many others, reverted to a Wikipedia article to make sense of it. The lasting value I’ll take from this link is an understanding of the vastness and complexity of the XML world. I should not be surprised, because XML makes internet authoring easier, and that is a huge industry.
I haven’t thought before about the hundreds of thousands of people who get paid to design products that make it easier for millions of others to post things online. It must be the same as the people who make pallets and boxes and shrink-wrap and forklifts and trucks and uniforms and coffee and insurance policies and razors and sunglasses and cigarettes and boots and fast food to ensure that my grocery store is stocked with food every day.
Andre Bergholz PDF
SGML “defines structure for documents…”
HTML dictates the layout of documents, but doesn’t address their content.
XML allows a user to “meaningfully annotate text” so that people and computers can more easily read and interpret it. In other words: XML lets you make your text look the way you want it to, no matter which system or machine is decoding it. I think.
I bookmarked this site, because I appreciated that it was written by people for other people to read.
http://www.w3schools.com/Schema/default.asp
Because XML allows more direction than HTML, it was more difficult to play around with in the tutorial.
“Start learning XML Schema Now!” This page makes me want to jump right in and learn XML this afternoon! Once again, I feel like some hyperbole (or at least a negligent or imprecise usage of implied meaning) was employed here.
What it really means is: Start the arduous chore of mastering a vast, logically-foreign language of Gordian complexity that may require three hours of study a day for several weeks, and a few trips to your IT-trained brother-in-law’s house, three bottles of ibuprofen, and could result in deep feelings of inadequacy.
I liked it.
I have some understanding of HTML, I’ve worked with it before and I don’t necessarily get XML so don’t worry. It’s supposed to be easier to use and you don’t have to learn a pre-defined set of tags like HTML, but to me it seems more difficult. With HTML you can look up tags for what you want to do if you don’t already know them, in XML you have to define your own tags before you can use them. If I was better versed in HTML I might find that easier and more useful, but for now It just seems easier to use the already defined language of HTML that I can look up if need be.
ReplyDeleteRight, the variations available to a user in XML are greater than in HTML, and this is seen as a strength, but to me it just seems so much more complicated to perform a lot of the same functions I can perform using HTML. Maybe if I actually "used" it for a document, its benefits would become more apparent than its complexity.
ReplyDeleteYes, it looked easy at first and then I got lost, but I went back and took it slower (plodding really) and that helped. I'm so new at this I didn't know where to start!
ReplyDelete1. Thank you for reposting that link for the first article because I was confused when I first clicked on the link in blackboard.
ReplyDelete2. I agree there is a "vastness" to XML and feel like I will never understand it even with the lovely tutorial of the 4th article. Which I also liked, even though I still feel far inferior to whoever writes these things.
I found XML overwhelming.