www.xmlsearch.info

People talk to each other all the time. We use English, Spanish or one of hundreds of other languages. They are imperfect but they convey information well enough. Computers need the ability to communicate with each other, as well. And, one of the ways to accomplish it is Extensible Markup Language, or XML. XML is a way of describing information.

When we speak, the words we use have purpose (or ‘rules’) and are interpreted by the person you are speaking to. The person listening knows the rules (hopefully), and can respond in kind. XML is the language of data. XML is used to describe information — any information you want!

XML is human readable. So we could write it, and give it to software to interpret without having to make a database filled with information we can’t read. Computer applications or web applications use XML to transfer information back and forth, respond, and save everything from pictures to your credit card information.

The web is powered by XML. In fact, several versions of HTML, the language of web pages, is actually XML. So, it can be consumed as data like XML. Many modern web sites don’t even pass whole web pages to you. They send chunks of XML to your computer, which in turn translates the XML into browser readable information.

Lastly, if you are an application developer, XML is frequently used to pass information between different applications. Using XML not only preserves your information, but makes it easy to compress, write and read. So very big collections of information shrink down fast, can be sent very quickly, than read on the other side without worrying about the other side being able to read the file.

XML is the language of data. Master it, and a world of possibilities open before you!