Any XML developers out there?

[Clive Long]

Just a general "usage" question - nothing "technical". This question is again "course" related - I'm not trying to pinch commercial ideas.


1. If your organisation uses XML what is its primary application?
1.1 Data transfer between devices?
1.2 Content "distribution" for rendering on different devices / browsers?
1.3 Other? (please specify)

2. How does your organisation "hold" its XML
2.1 In "flat files"?
2.2 In some standard database e.g. Oracle?
2.3 Other? (please specify)

3. What benefits have accrued from using XML?

4. What problems are experienced using XML?


Thanks

Clive

[killingtime]

Originally Posted by Clive Long

1. If your organisation uses XML what is its primary application?
1.1 Data transfer between devices?
1.2 Content "distribution" for rendering on different devices / browsers?
1.3 Other? (please specify)

We use it all over the shop. My primary use of it is focused around XML document processing through XSLT (including rendering in XHTML + XForms). Communication through SOAP. A little bit of some of the many XML standards out there. For example using XInclude for document inclusion processing. I use Apache Cocoon as a pipeline framework. Don't really send alternative rendering for multiple targets but I'm keeping it in mind while developing the system.

Oh and Schema. OK basically I'm an XML nut.

Originally Posted by Clive Long

2. How does your organisation "hold" its XML
2.1 In "flat files"?
2.2 In some standard database e.g. Oracle?
2.3 Other? (please specify)

It is interesting to not see "as XML" (or would you deem that flat files) as an option. Anyway for the XForms data we get back from the client we then persist in a SQL database and when data is fetched back the row(s) are converted back into XML based on the Schema.

Originally Posted by Clive Long

3. What benefits have accrued from using XML?

It's really easy to take an XML document and make another one out of it using XSLT (which is, as it happens, an XML document). I like that; a lot. For example I can provide the news as an Atom feed and then feed that into the body of a HTML file.

If you have a Schema you can easily get real time validation on files and such so some of the tools are really good to work with.

Originally Posted by Clive Long

4. What problems are experienced using XML?

Sometimes trying to debug some of the processing (when things go wrong) can be a pain. Umm the SQL tools I have for mapping I haven't been that impressed with but they are improving. It can be a bit verbose but I don't see that as a big deal.

[Lou]

Hi Clive! How's the course going?

Originally Posted by Clive Long

1. If your organisation uses XML what is its primary application?
1.1 Data transfer between devices?
1.2 Content "distribution" for rendering on different devices / browsers?
1.3 Other? (please specify)

All of the above, plus, as a data modeller, I store my models & metamodels in XML.

2. How does your organisation "hold" its XML
2.1 In "flat files"?
2.2 In some standard database e.g. Oracle?
2.3 Other? (please specify)

Again - all of the above. And we also hold it in the CVS repository for software builds.

Hmmm... I haven't really got any particular things to add to benefits & problems - but I'm not a huge fan of maintaining my models in XML, as I'm a graphical person - so I prefer modelling tools. So, one issue I have is trying to import & export the xml into various bits of software.

Hope this helps, anyway.

[spindr]

Well the whole of my www.afterfive.co.uk website's "developed" in XML -- and it's all downloadable including the XSLT scripts (http://www.afterfive.co.uk/guide/latest/xml.tar.bz2) if you wanna' take a look.

The great benefit is that the XSLT stuff makes transforming the content from XML to XHTML, RTF, LaTeX, Cerocwiki, etc. formats a doddle -- as long as you *think* about the problem first -- and have a good DTD (yeah, I know I should move to schema, but I'll wait for a bit first).

I use Saxon mostly and occasionally xsltproc.

In the past I've been able to take structure documents to/from databases really easily -- which means you get the benefits of both file and database based systems, e.g. it's really horrible trying to spellcheck data in a database, and it's not that easy to get a SQL like query from XML -- but having a decent structure made it easy.

I've been starting to look at XInclude which looks like it could make life easier -- plus, also looking at SVG, and that's definitely looking a fun way to make graphics easily in XML.

Cheers,
SpinDr.

[frodo]

Originally Posted by Clive Long

Just a general "usage" question - nothing "technical". This question is again "course" related - I'm not trying to pinch commercial ideas.


1. If your organisation uses XML what is its primary application?
1.1 Data transfer between devices?
1.2 Content "distribution" for rendering on different devices / browsers?
1.3 Other? (please specify)

2. How does your organisation "hold" its XML
2.1 In "flat files"?
2.2 In some standard database e.g. Oracle?
2.3 Other? (please specify)

3. What benefits have accrued from using XML?

4. What problems are experienced using XML?


Thanks

Clive

1. Mostly configuration, though 1.1 and 1.2 to a limited degree.

2. Mostly flat files, sometimes in popular relational databases. Sometimes stored as compressed binary text rather simple text.

3. Being able to express higher level concepts in a somewhat standardised way compared to the next level down - plain text - it saves having to agree these every time; ability to use tools based on the higher level concepts save further time, and standards make it possible to substitute different tools in case one doesn't come up to scratch.

4.
Whitespace handling being pretty hit and miss between systems.

Speed / size.

General lack of understanding of XML - So lots of things purporting to be XML or use XML standards aren't / don't.

The less than optimal fit to XML of some major relational databases.