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Washington Technologies White Papers

Washington Technologies White Papers

What is XML?

B. Tommie Usdin, President, Mulberry Technologies, Inc.
Deborah A. Lapeyre, Vice-President, Mulberry Technologies, Inc.

XML is a new standard for creating, sharing, and browsing documents on the Internet. The non-proprietary XML standard is under development right now by the W3C (World-Wide Web Consortium). The XML standard has three parts: the language specification is a subset of SGML; the linking specification provides tags for hyperlinking; and the style specification will allow control of display and formatting. XML is a leaner, meaner, stripped-down version of SGML optimized for use on the Web. Every valid XML document will be a valid SGML document, but XML is an SGML subset, using only the most commonly-used features of SGML.

To use HTML, tags are embedded in data (W3C provides the tag set) that drive hypertext links and browser formatting. Unlike HTML, SGML and XML let users create their own organization- or industry-specific tags and use them, not just to make hypertext links work and display on browsers, but for document security, version control, context-specific searching, and much, much more. The tags are under user control and can be designed to meet user needs.

Will XML Replace SGML?

No! But for some organizations with relatively simple data requirements, yes. Many other organizations will create information in SGML and translate to XML for the web, the way they are using HTML now.

Will XML Replace HTML?

No! But for manufacturing and defense-contract data, financial data, confidential or secret material, or anything complex -- organizations are already feeling HTML confining. They need the power, the SGML-power, that XML can provide.

Will XML Replace PDF (Page Description Format)?

No! XML and PDF don't perform the same function. PDF preserves the image (the exact look and feel) of formatted pages. That's great for archiving. But, increasingly, both information display and information interchange demand more than just pages. A page shown on the screen is not the same thing as a dynamic searchable, resizeable document containing reuseable and repurposable information. PDF is a great final format for static material that never has to do anything else. And SGML and XML applications will continue to produce PDF in addition to full-text searchable databases, HTML, and other display formats.


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