11/8 Reading Responses

Introducing the Extensible Markup Language

This article discussed some information with which I was familiar much more descriptively.  I knew some of the basic aspects of XML before reading this article, although after reading this article, the sections about designing tags and standard and non-standard text elements were helpful and interesting in my opinion.  I thought the sections about element attributes and coded text were also interesting, because they discussed the importance of cross-referencing by the unique identifier in XML, and how coded text allows for transferability in software and hardware.  Even though the information discussed in this article contained some specific terminology, I think that this article is descriptive enough to be useful in assisting XML beginners. 

A survey of XML standards: Part 1

I thought this article expounded efficiently on the subject of XML.  This article would be better applicable for anyone that has some knowledge of XML, and is familiar with the basic aspects of XML.  I thought that the article’s best attribute was the inclusion of references and tutorials throughout the article.  I thought the best sections of the article were the ones that discussed XML languages, because of the variety of resources and tutorials provided that regarded different XML languages.  Although I am not familiar with the many different types of XML schema languages, after reading this article, I intend to read at least some of the references and tutorials regarding XML languages.    

Extending Your Markup: An XML Tutorial

Of the first three articles, I thought that this article provided a much more accessible description of the history of XML and its uses.  I think that this article provided some good examples of using XML, such as XML in bibliographies and links.  Even though this article does not provide as many references and resources as Ogbuji’s article, it does provide a more concise list of XML resources as well as some useful recommendations.  I thought that Ogbuji’s and Bryan’s articles did provide more useful knowledge about links and XML schemas, although this article by Bergholz does describe links and schemas more concisely, which could be more helpful for beginners.     

XML Schema Tutorial

I think that this web site provided the best examples of actual XML of the four sites.  This site provided good examples of XML in almost every section, and discussed other important aspects of XML such as empty elements, mixed content, and element substitution.  I was expecting this site to be more technical than the other sites, after reading the HTML and CSS versions of this site.  Unfortunately, there weren’t any interactive sections of this site like in the HTML and CSS versions, although it did provide a helpful example section, in my opinion.  I found the section on data types to be helpful also, because it discussed the restrictions of each specific data type on the bottom of the pages for each data type.