EXLN. Found this very informative post on Raging Bull today.
General XML Info
Let's crank up that XML knowledge from an 8 out of 100 to at least 12 or 14!
The more folks know about XML, the more they'll see the potential of EXLN and
other XML B2B companies.
I work for a global technology consulting firm focusing on eCommerce (both B2B and B2C, but leaning toward B2B as that's where the significant money is in the next couple years), and XML is baked into every one of our solutions or technology roadmaps. It's very likely going to be the foundation of B2C commerce tomorrow, and the majority of Internet commerce soon after.
XML Info
xml.org - wealth of info on XML
msdn.microsoft.com - microsoft is one of XML's strongest proponents (that in and of itself makes XML a big deal). The "XML Samples and Demos" section is a little techie, but is a decent intro into the concept of XML - look for the "General Information" section in here.
biztalk.org - Microsoft is leading a consortium of vendors in making XML frameworks implementable across enterprises and industries as rapidly and easily as possible.
Quick definition:
"XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language. It is a standard, generalised language for the structured storage and transfer of information.
"It is a simplification of SGML (Standard Generalised Markup Language), which is a meta-language which has been used to describe thousands of different document types in many fields, from the technical documentation for stealth
bombers to musical notation. HTML is just one of these document types ƒ?? a markup language written in SGML, and used to describe the presentation of documents on the Web.
Unfortunately, one of the casualties of SGMLƒ??s flexibility is that it is a huge and complex language. XML is an abbreviated version of SGML, omitting the more abstruse and less commonly used parts of the language in return for
being easier to use in applications, and easier to understand. XML should be thought of as a subset of SGML rather than an extended version of HTML.
"XML is a project of the World Wide Web Consortium, commonly known as the W3C (http://www.w3.org/), and the development is being supervised by the W3Cƒ??s XML Working Group. The W3C is a vendor-neutral industry consortium, with the
mission of leading the world wide web to its full potential by developing common protocols. The W3C currently has more than 270 commercial and academic members world-wide, including hardware and software vendors,telecommunications companies, content providers, corporate users, and government and academic entities.
XML is a public format. It is not a proprietary development of any company. Version 1.0 of the XML specification was accepted by the W3C as a Recommendation in February 1998. However, many of the standards surrounding XML (such as XSL) are continually evolving, and as such the W3C web site
should be consulted for the latest version of the specifications." |
