Xml

explain

[esha_salz]

XML Language
- used for programmin?
-is it reliable and easy to learn
- can u educate me a bit more about it

[Skylo]

I personally haven't had that much experience with XML and truthfully do not know much about it but i can shed some light on how i have used it. XML has been for me a great way of storing data without having to write anything to a database or something like that. It is almost a middle ground. For instance, i made a tool in C# that queries the search engines and brings back the results of all my keyword rankings in an XML format. It was then very easy and efficient from there to write those results to Excel.
See where this is beneficial is instead of taking those results and storing them in tables ia a database, and then having to use select statements and the like to retrieve that data to put into Excel i could merely do it all in one step.

Don't they use XML for RSS Feeds as well?

Sorry i cannot give you an accurate description but i thought i could fill you in on how an average software developer can use it ;-)

Happy Surfing

[rexrhino]

Simply a standard for storing text based data. If you have one standard (XML), then it makes it easier to share data between applications (instead of each application using it's own proprietary format).

For example, if your mail reader address book was stored as an XML file, it would be extremly easy for you to write an application which could import and use that data.

When it comes to the web, XML is useful in seperating page content from page layout/display code.

[danieljean]

[w3.org...]

They also suggest a google search for XML online tutorials [google.com] if you want to learn about it.

XML is getting a bad rap from some quarters, especially by people that don't fully understand its power. For more info, google for the XML FAQ.

[ogletree]

It's a real fancy CSV file.

[hannamyluv]

is it reliable and easy to learn

I had to call my Dad (who has 30 years experience with programming, yep worked with data cards) to double check that it was really that easy. I couldn't believe that anything related to computers could be that easy.