XML has actually become very popular these days and is used in many sites for many reasons. Anyone who is into web design or programming should probably learn about XML and how to use it. So what can XML do for you and what is XML anyway?
Many websites utilize XML. It is short for Extensible Markup Language and provides the foundation for several languages, including XHTML and RSS.
XML code itself does not do anything. It is plain text that is used for transporting and storing data. It cannot replace HTML, but it does work well with it, since HTML can be used to display the information carried by the XML document.
Many websites use XML to make updating their sites easier. For example, let’s say you have designed a website about cooking and new recipes are added daily. You could go through the HTML code and edit it each time you wanted to update the site, or you could integrate XML into your site and update a text file that works with your HTML instead.
To use XML effectively, you should have a basic understanding of both HTML and JavaScript. If you don’t already, there are many websites that will help you learn XML, HTML, and JavaScript together.
When you create an XML document, you invent your own tags, which is unlike HTML. With HTML, you must use the specific tags to perform a function or the code will not work. For instance, let’s say we were making a website about shoes. In our XML document, we’d create our own tags that make sense with the information we are about to store. Our tags might have names like type, brand, style, fabric, and color, for example.
If you are designing a large website, there is no need to deal with the frustration of constantly editing your HTML. Instead, consider researching XML and using it to update your site.
Next, check out more tips and resources for learning XML.
