Introduction to the Extensible Markup Language (XML)
While reading this article it finally sank in that languages such as HTML
and XML truly are just like other languages. These particular ones take
words, grammar, and symbols from the English language and create a
language to bridge the gap between human and machine. I'm not sure why
this revelation took me so long, but it helps me study and absorb the
languages now that I'm thinking of them as though I'm learning a foreign
language very similar to English. That being said, I can't imagine having
a language other than English as my native language, and needing to
become semi-fluent in English in order to write HTML or XML.
so far XML seems more complicated and/or confusing than HTML. I'm hoping
the tutorials will shed some light as it sounds like knowing XML will be
necessary for building digital databases.
A survey of XML standards: Part 1
This article honestly just confused me and made me nervous. It talked
about the different languages that are called XML. Basically it seems as
though there is a specific format for every specific need that could
arise. The confusion and nervousness came from the multitude and
complexity of XML. It would take a lot of time to understand and utilize
it fully.
Extending Your Markup: An XML Tutorial
Yay! This article began by reassuring me that thinking XML is simple then
discovering it's really not is typical and okay. The reassurance made me
want to read the article. Things are still a bit hazy, but I'm starting
to get a better grasp of how XML works just by understanding its syntax a
little better.
XML Schema Tutorial (W3 Schools)
This tutorial was not as useful as the HTML one last week. I kept
expecting them to let me try XML myself, but this interactive feature was
missing to my dismay. I am beginning to see better how XML can help
define relationships within a database. I hope our lecture makes things a
little more clear though.
I agree with you completely about the Survey of XML standards being a confusing article to read. It was not until reading the article through a few times that I understood what he was saying, and even then I only grasped what he was saying after reading the tutorial articles that were full of visual examples.
ReplyDeleteI am like you in my need to think of all this HTML and XML stuff as a language. What keeps getting me is that by themselves, XML tags have no meaning to the computer. The computer does not get the same things out of language as we do, such as contend or purpose. It must use another process (DTD or XML Schemas) to finally give it meaning. It is fascinating how much must be done to give words meaning to something that essentially can only understand the numbers 0 and 1.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if it is more difficult for non-English speakers to learn html and xml. I hadn't really thought about it much before.
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