Basics of XML Development: How XML is used

XML is applied to many aspects of web development and is often used to simplify the storage and sharing of data.

XML separates data from HTML if you need to display dynamic Data in an HTML document, it will take a lot of time to edit the HTML whenever the data changes. Through XML, data can be stored in separate XML files. This allows you to focus on using HTML for layout and display, and make sure that modifying the underlying data no longer requires any changes to the HTML.

By using a few lines of JavaScript, you can read an external XML file and then update the contents of the data in HTML.

You'll learn more about this later in the chapter.

XML simplifies data sharing in the real world, computer systems and data use incompatible formats to store data.

XML data is stored in plain text format, thus providing a method of data storage that is independent of software and hardware.

This makes it easier to create data that can be shared by different applications.

XML simplifies data transfer through XML, you can easily exchange information between incompatible systems.

One of the most time-consuming challenges for developers is the exchange of data between incompatible systems on the Internet.

Because it is possible to read data through a variety of incompatible applications, XML exchange of data reduces this complexity.

Changes to the XML simplified platform are always time-consuming to upgrade to a new system (hardware or software platform). Large amounts of data must be converted, and incompatible data is often lost.

XML data is stored in text format. This makes XML easier to extend or upgrade to new operating systems, new applications, or new browsers without losing data.

XML makes your data more useful because XML is independent of hardware, software, and applications, XML makes your data more usable and useful.

Different applications can access your data, not just in an HTML page, but also from an XML data source.

With XML, your data is available to a wide variety of reading devices (hand-held computers, voice devices, news readers, etc.) and can also be used by blind or other people with disabilities.

XML is used to create new Internet languages many new Internet languages are created from XML: Examples include XHTML-the latest HTML version of WSDL-used to describe available WebService WAP and WML-tagged language rss for handheld devices -Language for RSS feeds RDF and OWL-used to describe resources and ontology smil-used to describe the Needles for web Multimedia if developers are rational, let future applications use XML to Exchange data.

There may be some sort of word processing software, spreadsheet programs, and databases that can read each other's data in plain text format without using any of the conversion programs.

All we can do now is to pray that Microsoft and all other software developers will agree on this.