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4 The XML Files: Development of XML/XSL Applications Using WebSphere Studio
1.1 XML concepts
In today’s technology, XML is starting to becoming a key piece of software
infrastructure. The main idea is extremely simple. It is a language like HTML and
is text based, but is rigidly enforced, and therefore, can be built upon easily. XML
documents may use a Document Type Definition (DTD) or an XML Schema.
XML was designed to describe data and to focus on the data, unlike HTML which
was designed to display data. It was created to structure and store data.
1.2 Background
The Internet has had amazing growth during the last 8 years. However, in the
last four years, its usage has increase exponentially. In the first 4 years, its
foundations were laid, and in the later 4 years, a number of technologies have
evolved around it. Today, it is in the mainstream of life, and everyday, every
talk revolves around its usage. Nowadays, advertising mandates that a Web
page address be displayed and e-mail is considered official documents.
This growth has been fueled by many factors. The cost of personal computers
has decreased dramatically, network technologies are more widespread and
cheaper, schools are emphasizing computer literacy at an early age. Its ease of
use has been its biggest contributor. Access to the Internet is as easy as logging
through the phone line and the local area network. Computer education is now
part of the school curriculum at the primary level, so that today’s youngsters do
not lose out on the this new revolution.
Tim Berners-Lee, who leads the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the
inventor of HTML and HTTP, could not have envisaged this growth. Even,
computer giants like IBM and Microsoft had to realign their technical and
business philosophies to cater for the explosive growth. To not follow, meant to be
left behind. It would be true to say, we cannot envisage what the Internet will
bring in the next five years, only to say that there will be new ways we will be
doing business and enjoying leisure.
This ability to manage large amount of simple and complex data in many forms,
without limitations, and display in a readable format, can be based for this
universal data format. As we know, this can be provided by the eXtensible
Markup Language (XML).