Posts Tagged ‘markup language’

If you’ve found yourself yearning for a document format that makes it easy and flexible to exchange data across the Web, then you should learn about XML, or Extensible Markup Language. . Software of many varieties are already using XML to optimize data organization and presentation.

It’s the great flexibility of XML that makes it so appealing to web developers. Because of the way the language is structured, it is possible to exchange data in many different forms. Additionally, users find that XML makes data access simpler than is possible with HyperText Markup Language, more commonly known as HTML. Consider that XML programming has the capability to display one web page in either a mobile or regular format, depending on the user. Developers then could make one page instead of two. XML’s efficiency is probably becoming more clear!

It isn’t necessary to have extensive prior experience with HTML in order to operate well using XML. The two do go hand-in-hand in many respects, since they are both descendents of SGML, another markup language. The purpose of a markup language is to organize, categorize, or otherwise label content, and the markup describes the organization. Markup contains content, which is what you see when you look at an XML document.

XML was developed when HTML’s great shortcoming became clear. In HTML, users cannot add new markup elements. This lack of flexibility gave way to the development of XML, which aimed to meet the evolving needs for document and data handling in a web environment.

This is just a primer for understanding what XML is, and why it might be useful for you. For those who wish to make the most of web development, it’s a great idea to put learning XML on your list of things to do.