What's the point of XML?

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Ambush Commander
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Post by Ambush Commander »

I don't like parsing XML because I don't really understand the document object model thingy. Plus the PHP functions for handling it are complicated and not always available.

::smiles sweetly::

Boy, I really need to learn more about this newfangled AJAX thing.
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Benjamin
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Post by Benjamin »

Ambush Commander wrote:Boy, I really need to learn more about this newfangled AJAX thing.
NO KIDDING!! Sorry for the caps, but have you seen the gmail chat system? You can instant message people while you are reading, writing email. I want to create something like that.
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Ambush Commander
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Post by Ambush Commander »

Well, if you're trying to write an extension for Wikipedia (that's my current project, sorta) the developers are constantly worried about performance impacts and what-not. I'm going to have to refine my JavaScript skills, because that will be the way to display meta-data in a useful fashion, but AJAX calls would be waaay to costly.

Back to XML... however... (I suppose AJAX is sort of relevant)
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cj5
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Post by cj5 »

agtlewis wrote:Hey...

That was totally uncalled for. I realize that my opinions may differ from the opinions of others. Sometimes I am right and sometimes I am wrong. But what you said was pretty dubious and I would encourage you to contemplate things more carefully before you reach such drastic conclusions. I honestly don't feel the need to defend myself from the statement you made, but I will anyway. All I was saying is that some people find XML very very usefull, and others have no need for it at all. Thats a pretty simple concept.

I do respect the opinions of others. I feel that perhaps you didn't respect my opinion when you wrote that post. I also feel that this is a great place to learn from others. I have learned more here than probably anywhere else on the Internet regarding PHP. I try to give back by helping others.

By the way, I didn't start this discussion, I only participated. Sorry I spelled "moot" incorrectly. I don't spellcheck everything I type.
I apologize. I just got the impression that you weren't willing to contribute that much to the discussion. This is a great post, whoever started it, and it deserves intelligent responses from people on both sides of the debate. I didn't want to offend anyone, but it was a product of being annoyed by such a simplistic, and base repose, that made me.
Grim...
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Post by Grim... »

cj5 wrote:This is a great post, whoever started it, and it deserves intelligent responses from people on both sides of the debate.
Just like it did last time and the time before that etc, etc, etc...
duk
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Post by duk »

timvw wrote:- Can i easily get a hold of the data? Yes. Virtually every environment has a mechanism to handle XML.
- Can i transport all sorts of data efficiently? Not so sure about this.. Eg: binary data
- Does it solve my data-interchange problems? Not really, i still have to agree about a DTD/XSD before i can really give meaning to the data.. This is the same problem other datawrapping mechanisms suffer..

Like it or not, to me it seems that XML is simply a format to wrap your data in.. And provides you a way to easily interchange that data wrapped in XML...
i dont understand to much about XML but he got the point, for me until i understand now, XML is a crap.. i prefer that everyone write in HTML where hi will be able to read and understand then someone wrote a XML document, leave the company and the boss wants to use the same XML document and you need to lost hours to understand how the other person have organize data...

and i still dont understand the point of XML, a lot of XML on the internet im not able to see them, because i think i need the xml parser like a css for xml... so whats the point someone look into XML data and need to spent some time figure out, how things are wrking ??? why not use a standard laguage..
duk
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Post by duk »

agtlewis wrote:
Ambush Commander wrote:Boy, I really need to learn more about this newfangled AJAX thing.
NO KIDDING!! Sorry for the caps, but have you seen the gmail chat system? You can instant message people while you are reading, writing email. I want to create something like that.
sorry my poor knowledge.. but that is working with AJAX ??? i have read some texts that AJAX sucks and other articles that AJAX is paradise... still need to read more...
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m3mn0n
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Post by m3mn0n »

Test it out for yourself...

...experience does you wonders.
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patrikG
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Post by patrikG »

duk wrote:i dont understand to much about XML but he got the point, for me until i understand now, XML is a crap.. i prefer that everyone write in HTML where hi will be able to read and understand then someone wrote a XML document, leave the company and the boss wants to use the same XML document and you need to lost hours to understand how the other person have organize data...
You are fundamentally misunderstanding the nature HTML and XML. HTML is XML, only badly formed, like a dialect of a language in a remote mountain village. HTML is basically nothing but a container for data and layouting information. Problem is: it has many, many, many silly exceptions, and does not comply with standards. An attempt at a solution to this was XHTML (after HTML 4, HTML 3 etc.).
To simply display a webpage in a webbrowser, that might have been fine, but to display a page in many different devices, from smart phones, PDAs, print, TV etc. etc. HTML increases complexity.
Stylesheets came to the rescue (more or less), but now everyone wants their data in "real-time" (sidenote: as opposed to "unreal time";) ). So data between very, very different sources of information, across very different companies, webservices, applications (chat, blogs, podcasts, office documents etc. etc.) needs to be interconnected. HTML simply cannot live up to the job, due to it's mix-up of layouting and, generally, non-standard compliance.
Another, more flexible markup language was required and the IT industry looked to the "mother" of HTML, XML - which offers total flexibility in terms of data (with the notable exception, as has been said before, of binary data). Think about where the internet is heading and start searching for terms like "semantic web" and you see why interconnectedness is key to everything electronic.
duk wrote:and i still dont understand the point of XML, a lot of XML on the internet im not able to see them, because i think i need the xml parser like a css for xml... so whats the point someone look into XML data and need to spent some time figure out, how things are wrking ??? why not use a standard laguage..
XML is the standard language. Look beyond the web and look at what is being planned. Read up on RSS, REST queries, XMLRPC, etc. etc. In an industry which was once famous for it's proprietary data formats, XML is "the" answer. Whether you like it or not, XML is a cornerstone of the internet and has already moved to the desktop (i.e. Open Office, soon MS Office as well - see "open document").[/list]
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