Free XML Tutorials

Eric van der Vlist is the author of XML Schema.Microsoft Office Embraces XMLFor many participants, the most memorable event of XML 2002 will be JeanPaoli’s presentation of Office 11, which promises to deliver easier access toXML for hundreds of millions of workstations.Those of us who had to connect a Windows PC to the Internet in theearly 90s remember the difficulty of choosing and installing TCP/IP andthe browser software necessary to access and browse the Web. At that time,Microsoft didn’t be Read the rest of this entry »

Elliotte Rusty Harold’s new XML Object Model (XOM) is a simple, tree-basedAPI for XML, written in Java. XOM attempts to build on good ideas fromother Java XML APIs — SAX, DOM, and JDOM — and to leave behind some of theirfrustrations. The result is a high-level open-source API that is easy tolearn and use, assuming that you are already familiar with Java andXML.Unlike SAX, XOM is written with classes instead of interfaces, makingit more straightforward to use. With SAX you must first implementi Read the rest of this entry »

SoftQuad’s XMetaL takes a good first cut at a workable interface for writers (as opposed to programmers or data-entry clerks) working with structured text. It’s more than an "XML editor", a label that might be applied to products like XED, XML Spy, and Vervet that provide basic data and metadata editing functions with explicit control over XML markup. XMetaL falls into new category that you might call XML or structured word processing along with Arbortext’s Adept Editor andWord Read the rest of this entry »

The previous three editions of XML-Deviant reviewed Web Forms 2.0, or WF2, a Member Submission made to the W3C by a loose group called The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group, often abbreviated WHATWG.This week, continuing a web application theme leading up to the XTech Conference, XML-Deviant takes a look at the issues involving the broader internet application community. The first stop is the W3C Team Comment on WF2. Normally, the W3C won’t acknowledge a Member Submiss Read the rest of this entry »

Most, if not all of the permanent topics of conversation on XML-DEV revolve around two camps of people: one which thinks aspect N of XML is a wart, the other which thinks N is an elegance. These threads never end because, in part, there is no final or absolute context within which XML is meant to be used. Whether you think of N as a wart or an elegance is context dependent and interest relative. It depends almost entirely on who you are and what you want Read the rest of this entry »

UserLand Software has sent up a volley of fireworks this year. January brought Radio UserLand 8.0, the subject of last month’s column. Late February was the target date for Radio Community Server (RCS), an add-on that transforms an instance of Radio into the same kind of community server as Radio.Weblogs.Com.That means an RCS can broker the files upstreamed by Radio bloggers, and serve as a hub for recent updates, rankings, and referral logs. It’s designed for private use, typically behind a fir Read the rest of this entry »

Every once in a while, but never as often as you’d wish, a technologycomes along that profoundly improves your life. For me the most recentexample of such a thing is SpamBayes. More specifically, it’s thecombination of the SpamBayesengine, an open source email categorizer with some innovative twistson Paul Graham’s original plan, and Mark Hammond’s Outlookaddin which smoothly integrates training with normal use of theemail client.Months ago I wrote about how SpamBayes has solved my spam problem Read the rest of this entry »

The financial consequences of your selection of software, hardware,and technology are often dwarfed by your decisions about the othercomponent of every computer-based solution — that is, people. In orderto have a fairly concrete discussion of the roles people occupy insoftware development, I’ll cite specific technologies such as webservices and PKI; a specific industry — healthcare; and a specificgovernment regulation, HIPPA.Management needs to be able to plan and control the activities of the Read the rest of this entry »

After taking a well-earned break from the XML world last week, during which I attended the Python community conference, PyCon, I’ve returned rested and ready to tackle the latest issues in the XML development community. Before setting off for PyCon, I finished an XML-Deviant column ("An XML Hero Reconsiders?") in which I examined the XML development community’s reaction to some recent questions posed by Tim Bray about a perennial bugaboo Read the rest of this entry »

Web development in general recently emerged from a long period of stagnation. While the web browser has become a de facto operating system for the enterprise application, there used to be only two realistic options for developing them:Build simple web apps that work in any web browser on any operating system.Take advantage of browser-specific “bells and whistles” to make more advanced web applications. These applications would generally be limited to a single browser on a single operating system Read the rest of this entry »