WDVL's XML Resources section is an extensive collection of XML
resources, including links to all major XML sites, news, mailing lists, books,
references, FAQs and more. If by chance you can't find what you're looking forfrom
this page, try the parent XML directory,
or WDVL's XML Software Guide,
or our XML Specifications, Proposals,
and Vocabularies page. WDVL also has a separate collection of resources
for XLink (XML Linking Language) and
XPointer (XML Pointer Language).
Robin Cover's XML site (below) contains a page
called Introducing the
Extensible Markup Language, collecting a large number of key
introductory articles thought to be "relatively free of
company-specific marketing rhetoric".
This FAQ first appeared in early 2000. Collects lots of details about
this elusive topic, including an executive summary
of what namespaces are and are not. This FAQ is actually longer than the
Namespaces in XML Recommendation from the W3C.
Looking for a little XML-related humor? This non-FAQ by Joe English is extremely funny
if you know a bit about SGML and how XML came into being. Heck, it's pretty funny
even if you're a newbie!
By Tim Bray:
"If you want to understand XML, you have
to read the specification. However, to really
get inside the specification and understand
why it says what it does, you need an
expert guide. Tim Bray, co-editor of the
XML 1.0 specification, shares his knowledge
and insights about XML, SGML and the working group behind the
specification in this annotated version of the document."
WDVL has collected links to all of the official XML-related
specifications (recommendations), as well as relevant working
drafts, proposals from W3C members, and XML vocabularies.
XSLT Quickly
by Bob DuCharme [July 2001];
briefly covers the 20% of XSLT that you'll use 80% of the time
and then provides a task-oriented reference to show you additional techniques.
Another amazing ZVON.org resource, this XML Glossary grows weekly! If your
search term isn't found, they will consider it for inclusion.
Covers basic XML terminology, acronyms for W3C specs, acronyms for
non-W3C markup languages based on XML, XML products, and more.
You can also display the
entire XML Glossary
at once.
The acronyms list from XML Europe 2000 is quite extensive,
containing most XML acronyms plus other related acronyms.
Also contains links to conference papers on each topic.
WDVL has collected all of the XML-related acronyms -- from CDF to XSL
-- in one convenient table. If you can't find the term you're looking
for, try our Webmaster's Encyclopedia,
Webopedia,
or at WhatIs.com.
This tutorial by Eric Armstrong first appeared in the summer of 1999.
Working with XML "is an online manual that can
quickly get you up to speed writing XML
code and XML-based software for end-user applications. Using step-by-step
walkthroughs and lots of code examples, the Tutorial is divided into three major
parts" :
This is the XML home page of the World Wide Web
Consortium, including the
W3C XML Activity area, as well as links to software and all
relevant W3C XML recommendations, working drafts, and notes.
If you are interested in tracking the latest developments in XML
and all other emerging Web standards (XSL, XQL, SVG, RDF, DOM, CSS, etc.),
this is the page to monitor on a regular basis.
The first and most extensive XML site to date, updated almost daily; contains
thousands of links to all things XML-related.
Cover's site is hosted by OASIS
(Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards).
OASIS is a non-profit international
consortium dedicated to the promotion of structured information processing
standards, especially the SGML/XML family of languages.
Some of the many comprehensive sections of Robin Cover's site are:
Cafe con Leche is listed in our News section
below. However, Elliotte Rusty Harold's XML site is far more than
just news. ERH has compiled an extremely interesting and useful
list of XML resources, trade shows, mailing lists, books, quotes,
recommended reading, and news. The site is updated almost every day.
You can even catch up on ERH's past reading recommendations from
1999 and
1998.
Elliotte's excellent book,
XML Bible
was published in July 1999.
This is the closest we have to a monthly XML e-zine with great articles
by (and interviews with) experts in the field.
XML.com is a collaborative partnership between Seybold Publications
and Songline Studios, an affiliate of O'Reilly & Associates
with excellent content provided by Tim Bray (co-author of the XML spec),
Lisa Rein, Norman Walsh, G. Ken Holman, Xavier McLipps, Liora Alschuler, and many others.
Some of the main sections are:
Excellent organization of XML information, especially useful for
obtaining XML software and finding XML vocabularies. Sections include:
general information, specifications, XLL, XSL, example XML documents,
how people are using XML, books, papers, courses, conferences, and more.
This sister site of XML Info
first appeared in August 1998. Categories include: XML editors, parsers/
processors, DTD editors/tools, XML APIs/toolkits, XSL editors/tools,
XLink tools, transaction/publishing, systems, and conversion tools.
A great new XML Web site,
xmlhack: developer news from the XML community,
was launched
September 30, 1999. xmlhack is a
"news site for XML developers. Our aim is to distill the
essential news, opinions, tips and issues concerning XML development from the
growing number of high-quality online information sources."
This promises to be a major XML resource by editor/publisher Edd Dumbill
and contributing editors Gabe Beged-Dov, Simon St.Laurent, James Tauber, and others.
In April 2000, xmlhack added an XML Jobs Search page.
Apache Software Foundation (ASF),
the organization that developed the world's most popular (and free)
Web server,
announced on November 9, 1999 the creation of the
Apache XML Project.
The press release
discusses the goals of the project, which include
promoting an open source approach to XML and XSL tools.
Contributions include:
XML4J and XML4C Parsers from IBM
Java(TM) Project X and XHTML Parser from Sun Microsystems
LotusXSL, from Lotus Development Corporation
XPages, from DataChannel
FOP, from James Tauber, now with Bowstreet
Cocoon, from Stefano Mazzocchi and the Java-Apache community
Xang - Rapid development of dynamic server pages, in Java
SOAP - Simple Object Access Protocol
Batik - Java based toolkit for Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
XML.org is operated by OASIS
(Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). XML.org is a
"[S]ource of accurate, timely information about the application of XML in industrial
and commercial settings and to serve as a reference repository for specific XML standards such
as vocabularies, DTDs, schemas, and namespaces."
XML.org is the
"first global XML industry portal featuring the XML.org Registry and
Repository that offers automated public access to XML schemas for
electronic commerce, business-to-business transactions, and tools and
application interoperability."
The founding members of XML.org are:
Commerce One, DataChannel, Documentum, GCA, IBM, Oracle, SAP, SoftQuad and Sun Microsystems.
The sponsor list includes many more players, including Microsoft, Boeing and NIST.
See also:
"BizTalk is an industry initiative started by Microsoft and supported by a wide range of
organizations, from technology vendors like SAP and CommerceOne to technology
users like Boeing and BP/Amoco. BizTalk is not a standards body. Instead, we are a
community of standards users, with the goal of driving the rapid, consistent adoption of
XML to enable electronic commerce and application integration.
We are defining the BizTalk FrameworkTM, a set of guidelines for how to publish
schemas in XML and how to use XML messages to easily integrate software programs
together in order to build rich new solutions."
The charter members of BizTalk are:
Data Interchange Standards Association, Open Applications Group, Ariba,
Commerce One, Concur Technologies Inc., SAP AG, Peoplesoft Inc.,
The Baan Co., J.D. Edwards & Co., Pivotal Software Inc., Microsoft,
The Boeing Company, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc.
See also:
ebXML.org is an international initiative established by UN/CEFACT and OASIS.
The aim of the ebXML initiative is
"to develop a technical framework that will
enable XML to be utilized in a consistent manner for the exchange of all electronic
business data. Industry groups currently working on XML specifications have been
invited to participate in the 18-month project. A primary objective of ebXML is to
lower the barrier of entry to electronic business in order to facilitate trade,
particularly with respect to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and
developing nations."
The UDDI initiative "creates a global, platform-independent, open framework to enable businesses to (1) discover each
other, (2) define how they interact over the Internet, and (3) share information in a global registry that
will more rapidly accelerate the global adoption of B2B eCommerce."
Based on XML, DNS, HTTP, and SOAP. A large number of
companies have pledged support to UDDI.
IBM, Microsoft and Ariba developed WSDL as a replacement for earlier efforts
by Microsoft and IBM.
"WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of
endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or
procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are
described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and
message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are
combined into abstract endpoints (services). WSDL is extensible to allow
description of endpoints and their messages regardless of what message
formats or network protocols are used to communicate...."
OASIS formed a Technical Committee (TC) to develop a Universal Business Language.
Commerce One donated their
XML Common Business Library (xCBL) as a starting point.
"The purpose of the UBL TC is to develop a standard library of XML business
documents (purchase orders, invoices, etc.) by taking an already existing
library of XML schemas as a starting point and modifying it to incorporate the
best features of other existing XML business libraries. The TC will then design
a mechanism for the generation of context-specific business schemas through
the application of transformation rules to the common UBL source library. UBL
is intended to become an international standard for electronic commerce freely
available to everyone without licensing or other fees."
Although this XML.com article (Feb. 2000) entitled
Extensible and More
by Alan Kotok of
Data Interchange Standards Association (DISA)
is not really a site, it is a major resource comprised of
roughly 200 links to EDI and ecommerce
applications of XML grouped into 3 categories:
"XML/EDI provides a standard framework to exchange different types of data
-- for example, an invoice, healthcare claim, project status --
so that the information be it in a transaction, exchanged via an
Application Program Interface (API), web automation, database portal,
catalog, a workflow document or message can be searched, decoded, manipulated,
and displayed consistently and correctly by first implementing EDI dictionaries
and extending our vocabulary via on-line repositories to include our business language,
rules and objects. Thus by combining XML and EDI we create a new powerful paradigm
different from XML or EDI!"
At XML '98, IBM announced the launch of its official Web site
dedicated to XML technology. IBM's XML portal
"provide[s] the Internet community with the latest information,
tools, and educational resources relating to this emerging
standard."
IBM also has a site called alphaWorks
which has been responsible for
an incredible amount of useful, cutting edge XML software (mostly Java-based and nearly all free).
Some of the many features of the IBM XML site are:
In addition to the older Java Technology and XML site (below), the Sun XML
site made its debut in early 2000, with the goal of showing Sun's role in marrying
Java and XML. Site contains links to articles, FAQs and products. Sample article:
XML/XSL--The Lifeblood of E-Commerce: A Forte Technical Brief.
JavaSoft has been quite busy in the area of XML technology; efforts are afoot to make XML
a standard extension to Java.
"JavaTM Project X is the code name for XML technology services written
completely in the Java language. This package provides core XML
capabilities including a fast XML parser with optional validation and an
in-memory object model tree that supports the W3C DOM Level 1
recommendation. With Java Project X, developers can build robust,
flexible XML-oriented applications and network services."
The key JavaSoft XML links include:
Contains a wealth of information about XML and XSL, updated irregularly,
from introductions (such as the excellent article from early 1998,
XML:
A Technical Perspective) to the developers' guides and tutorials.
Developers should note that some information on the Microsoft XML pages
is for Microsoft-specific solutions requiring, for example, Internet Explorer or ActiveX.
(WDVL used to link to specific Microsoft sections, but the URLs change frequently
without URL forwarding. Are you listening, Microsoft Webmasters?)
The developerlife.com tutorials show you " how to use Java2, XML, Swing, Servlet, JDBC
and RMI APIs to create real world applications using XML and Java2.
Complete source code files (with documentation) are available for download..."
Among other XML goodies, Oracle provides an
XML Parser for Java,
a standalone XML component that enables
parsing of XML documents through either SAX or DOM interfaces using
validating or non-validating modes.
The award-winning GoXML.com is an XML Context-based Search Processor.
"The Goxml Project was launched [July 21, 1999] to create a new breed of Search Vehicle which can
index, store and allow accurate searching of XML data."
The www.xmlrpc.com site supports the development of
"simple cross-platform distributed computing, based on the standards of the Internet."
XML-RPC (Remote Procedure Call) is "a spec and a set of implementations that allow software running on disparate operating
systems, running in different environments to make procedure calls over the Internet. It's
remote procedure calling using HTTP as the transport and XML as the encoding. It's designed
to be as simple as possible, while allowing complex data structures to be transmitted,
processed and returned."
Lisa Rein is a technical writer whose work has appeared on
numerous web sites,
most recently XML.com.
Her finetuning.com web site is especially interesting in that it is written
in XML and uses a combination of CSS and XSL to prduce the HTML needed for
display in most browsers. She shares her techniques openly.
Lisa also compiled a very useful list of
Companies Developing XML Products
as part of her July 2001 update to the
XML Resources Page for IC Online.
An ongoing compendium of XML information by Lisa Rein is the
XML.com Resource Guide.
Tim Bray (co-author of the W3C Recommendation) has an XML site which,
among other things, features his
Lark XML parser.
You might also be interested in Tim's thought-provoking
glossary of technologies and problems.,
from awk to Z39.50 (with DTD, metadata, namespaces, and SGML in between)
and from advertising to zero budget growth (with Microsoft and Netscape
in between).
The Rich Site Summary (RSS) DevCenter by O'Reilly and Associates
For an RSS overview, see
RSS Delivers the XML Promise from Oct. 1999,
or this sample RSS file from Userland.
RSS was originally created for My Netscape Network
and has since become a general mechanism for describing data channels in
XML for sharing content on the Web.
See O'Reilly's Meerkat,
an open wire service based on RSS.
See also Robin Cover's RSS page.
From What is xmlBlaster:
"XmlBlaster is a publish/subscribe and point to point MOM server
(message-oriented middleware) which exchanges messages
between publishers and subscribers. The message is described
with XML-encoded meta information. Messages may contain
everything, GIF images, Java objects, Python scripts, XML data,
a word document, plain text - just anything.
Communication with the server is based on CORBA (using
JacORB) or RMI, and subscribers can use XPath expressions to
filter the messages they wish to receive."
Just SMIL is a major site devoted to SMIL (Synchronized
Multimedia Integration Language) offering news, info, tools, guides, discussion, and a gallery.
XML School covers HTML, CSS, DHTML, XHTML, WML, XML, XSL, DTD, DOM, WAP, SOAP,
XSchema, XForms and more. This site is somewhat Microsoft focused. A sister site is
XML101.com which has some interesting
examples for use with IE 5.
XSLT.com, launched in October 1999, is a "resource site for
XSLT, XSL, and XML technologies" by XML Global.
and sponsored by GOXML.com.
Lots of good info here, including a comprehensive
XSLT Tools list.
WDVL has compiled a
list of several key sites that focus on SOAP
(Simple Object Access Protocol) which,
according to the version 1.1 specification,
"provides a simple and lightweight mechanism for exchanging
structured and typed information between peers in a decentralized,
distributed environment using XML....used in a large variety of systems
ranging from messaging systems to RPC".
Jason Hunter and Brett McLaughlin are determined to make DOM
access intuitive for Java developers. Since April 2000,
JDOM's mission
is "to build a complete, Java-based solution for accessing,
manipulating, and outputting XML data from Java code."
XML/XSL Portal is an IE5-specific collection of XML, XSL, CSS,
tutorials and resources. Unfortunately, the site serves XML with IE5-specific XSLT
(the Dec. 1998 XSL draft) so it
will not work in browsers such as Netscape 5 or 6, Mozilla, or Opera.
RDF and Metadata Resource Sites
Several key sites for those interested in RDF and Metadata are:
Simon St.Laurent formed the eGroup XHTML-L
"for Web developers, Web designers, Webmasters,
document managers, tool builders, integrators, and anyone else with an interest
in XHTML to discuss strategies and tactics for making XHTML work."
In addition to being a discussion group, XHTML-L has a collection of
XHTML-related links.
XHTML.org is a site devoted to collecting resources for XHTML
developers.
Unfortunately, two other similarly named XHTML sites,
http://www.xhtml.net/ and
http://www.xhtml.com/
are French sites that have relatively little to do with XHTML.
"This is a frequently-updated and hopefully complete index of free XML tools, with much
metadata about the tools to make them easier to locate. The list below shows the various ways
of accessing the information on this site."
Interesting and extensive site that permits self-submissions.
Organized into Applications & Tools, Books & Reference, By Technology, Community,
Tutorials & Examples, Vertical Industries, and XML Sites.
Home page also includes XML news links.
BXXP (pronounced BEEP)
is a protocol framework for Internet applications.
The protocol framework supports the following three things:
1. Authentication (proving that BXXP applications are "who they say they
are") 2. Transport security (protecting the BXXP connection from
eavesdropping) 3. Data communication (the messages your applications send
and the formats they use).
BXXP is extensible through the use of
profiles which allow you to customize connections to other
BXXP-enabled applications. You use profiles for setting up different
kinds of communications between Internet applications. In the world of
BXXP, profiles are like protocols.
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration standard (registry)
creates a platform-independent, open framework for describing services,
discovering businesses, and integrating business services using the Internet.
The UDDI standard takes advantage of W3C and IETF
standards such as XML, HTTP and Domain Name System (DNS) protocols.
Additionally, cross platform programming features are addressed by
adopting early versions of the proposed Simple Object Access Protocol
(SOAP) messaging specifications.
Web Services Description Language is by Ariba, IBM and Microsoft.
"WSDL is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either
document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to
a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint. Related concrete endpoints are combined into abstract
endpoints (services)."
The News, Knowledge and Community of XML. Mostly articles collected by
Charles F. Goldfarb,
the inventor of SGML. Goldfarb also maintains
the All the XML Books in Print list.
"The Open Applications Group
is a non-profit consortium focusing on best
practices and process based XML content for eBusiness and Application
Integration. It is the largest publisher of XML based content for
business software interoperability in the world. Open Applications
Group, Inc. members have over 5 years of extensive experience in
building this industry consensus based framework for business software
application interoperability and have developed a repeatable process for
quickly developing high quality business content and XML representations
of that content. The mission .... is to define
and encourage the adoption of a unifying standard for eBusiness and
Application Software interoperability that reduces customer cost and
time to deploy solutions. Our vision .... is
to drive for a solution that enables an organization to buy more
quickly and easily integrate their Business to Business (B2B) and
Application to Application (A2A) software."
Launched in August 2000, XMLone.org is built with XML, XSLT, DOM, SAX, and JavaServer Pages (JSP).
"XMLone.org
is a non-profit organization supported by the technology vendors,
government board, developers and professionals from the Internet Community. This
website not only showcase the technology of XML to its users, but also to promote the
usage and the growth of this latest Internet technology in Singapore and the Asia
Pacific region.
Being the first XML User Group in the Asia Pacific region, the group will serve as an
information and resource portal of XML standards. It will help to facilitate the exchange
of information, news, training and recruitment. It will also encourage the various efforts
underway to make use of XML as key means in general-purpose e-commerce."
A collection of Common LISP modules for data stream parsing and serialization according to the
XML standards. The modules perform parsing and serialization between
XML, XML Query, and XML Path expressions and DOM-compatible CLOS instances.
Robin Cover updates the news section of his extensive XML site
nearly every day. In addition to containing several months worth
of news items, Robin's page contains links to yearly archives of
older XML and SGML news items since 1995.
Elliotte Rusty Harold's XML site contains XML news and interesting
quotes dating from April, 1998 to the present. Updated nearly every day.
ERH's 2000
news archive is worth scanning, as is his long list of
XML resources on the left side of the home page.
Moreover.com hosts an XML webfeed to which you can
subscribe. The Moveover site lists the
news items that appear in the weekly email, also called XML News (below).
The XML newsgroup was formed in July 1998 as the result of the
USENET Call for Votes initiated by James Tauber.
(Some news servers do not
yet carry this newsgroup; contact your news provider.)
The charter for comp.text.xml Newsgroup
is quoted below (see also the results of the
Call For Votes):
comp.text.xml CHARTER
Comp.text.xml shall be an unmoderated newsgroup for the general
discussion of the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and its
application. This includes, but is not limited to the specifications and
syntax, document creation and editing, interchange, software,
processing and database integration. This applies not only to
XML itself but also the Extensible Linking Language (XLL), the
Extensible Style Language (XSL), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) as
applied to XML documents, and to document types and applications
of XML.
Elliotte Rusty Harold maintains a comprehensive set of mailing
lists, including instructions for subscribing to any particular
list and the location of mail archives. These include mostly lists
for experienced developers, such as
xml-dev (current)
[older xml-dev archives],
java-xml-interest,
Perl-XML, XML-L (for authors),
XSL-list, and
xlxp-dev (XLink/XPointer).
Robin Cover's even longer collection includes mailing lists
for TEI, DSSSL, Davenport (DocBook), XML, XSL, perl, Python and RDF,
plus many more. Includes instructions for subscribing to any particular
list and the location of mail archives. For example, see the
xml-dev entry.
The World Wide Web Consortium's launch pad to all of their activities:
Amaya, CSS, DOM, HTML, Graphics, HTTP, Internationalization,
Jigsaw, MathML, Metadata, Micropayments, Mobile, P3P, PICS,
Privacy, RDF, SMIL/Multimedia, Style, SVG, TVWeb, URI/URL, Voice,
WAI, WebCGM, XLink, XML, XML Query, XML Schema, XML Signature,
XPointer, XSL, and more.
For those of you interested in XHTML, HTML modularization efforts or
next generation Web forms, the HTML Working Group updated its Roadmap in
July 2000.
Java APIs for XML Messaging (JAXM)
are "designed specifically
for the exchange of XML business documents such as, invoices,
purchase orders, and order confirmations....This JSR does not
aim to define either XML messaging standards or XML
schemas for particular tasks. These networking and formatting
standards belong in networking standards bodies such as Oasis
or IETF. Instead this JSR aims to define standard Java APIs to
allow convenient access from Java to emerging XML messaging
standards, such as the emerging ebXML Transport/Packaging
& Routing standard."
JAXM enables the packaging, routing and transport of both XML and non-XML
business messages via HTTP, SMTP, FTP and possibly other protocols.
Among its other potential uses, JAXM is positioned to facilitate eBusiness. It is possible that JAXM will be used for
the messaging framework of ebXML, the emerging global standard for simple
and robust trade facilitation, under joint development between
OASIS and the UN/CEFACT.
JSR-000031: XML Data Binding Specification
(JAXB, formerly Project Adelard) describes how to bind XML documents to Java objects.
The central idea is that a compiler can use XML Schema descriptions to
generate Java classes that implement the schema. Error and validation
will be handled without developers to write special code.
JAXB is scheduled for the first quarter of 2001.
JSR-000093, Java API for XML Registries 1.0 (JAXR)
"provides an API for a set of distributed Registry Services that
enables business-to-business integration between business enterprises,
using the protocols being defined by ebXML.org, Oasis, ISO 11179....
Currently there are numerous open standards for distributed
registries. Examples include OASIS, eCo Framework, ebXML. In
addition there also exists industry consortium led efforts such as
UDDI which may eventually be donated to a standard body. JAXR
will provide a uniform and standard API for accessing information
from these registries within the Java platform.
It is planned that this JSR will leverage work currently under way in
the ebXML Registry Working Group, Oasis, ISO, W3C, IETF...."
Sun's JSP technology "separates the user interface
from content generation enabling designers to
change the overall page layout without altering
the underlying dynamic content."
Coins and Quick are chiefly the work of Bill La Forge and others
of JXML, whose goal is to
extend Java using XML.
"Think of Coins
as representing intent, either statically as an
XML document, or dynamically as a structure of Java Objects in a
program. When an XML document is passed to a program, that intent is
implemented as a structure of Java Objects that may be unique to that
program, but which are now a vehicle for achieving the intent expressed
in the XML document....
two programs may internalize the same XML document into objects
built from different classes."
Quick is based on a schema language,
QJML "to define markup languages and their relationship to
Java classes. Once you have specified an XML markup language in QJML,
you can use Quick to perform a number of activities:
validate the structure and content of an XML document;
convert XML documents into structures of application-specific objects;
convert structures of objects into XML;
convert a structure of objects into another structure based on a different set of classes.
Mark Wutka's DTD parser
returns a DTD object that is similar to the DOM's Document object.
See also BeanToDTD that uses introspection to
convert a Java bean to a DTD.
Mark Wutka's JOX
"is a set of Java libraries that make it easy to transfer data between XML
documents and Java beans. You can think of JOX as a special form of Java Object
Serialization, using XML as the serialization format."
DOM Alternatives
Bruce Martin wrote an interesting article in March 2000 entitled
Lowering the bar of the DOM API
The article describes accessing XML data in Java without using the W3C DOM.
Another article concerning DOM simplication for Java developers is:
Easy Java/XML integration with JDOM
by Jason Hunter and Brett McLaughlin (May 2000).
From Topic Maps Overview:
"Topic maps is an ISO Standard (ISO13250) that enables
vast information resources to be classified and navigated
in a consistent manner. It allows for the concepts or topics
that underlie a set of information objects to be exposed to
those people or applications processing the information....
Topic Maps provide a semantic layer that is not hierarchical,
although it could be visualised that way, it facilitates
navigation at a level independent from any of the
information. It is a concept browser."
"Topicmaps.Org is an independent consortium of parties interested in
developing the applicability of the Topic Maps Paradigm to the World Wide
Web, by leveraging the XML family of specifications as required.
This work includes the development of version 1.0 of an XML grammar for
interchanging Web-based Topic Maps, called The XTM Specification."
This combined draft technical spec from the W3C and the
Unicode Consortium
presents guidelines on the use of the Unicode Standard Version 3.0 in
conjunction with XML and generally other markup languages.
SML-DEV is a group of over 75 XML experts
working to create simple XML (SML)
standards and to simplify existing XML standards. Projects include:
Minimal XML (aka SML)
- minimal subset of XML for data-centric XML applications; and
Common XML
- common usage guidelines for XML.
If you attempt to write your own DTD for XML, you'll ask yourself,
"When Should I Use Elements, and When Should I Use Attributes?"
This question is not new. Robin Cover has collected discussions on this
topic dating back to 1992 (for SGML).
This article by Simon St.Laurent from December 1999 discusses the main differences between DTDs
(Document Type Definitions) and XML Schema. It is a good survey of past and current approaches.
For many more articles and presentations concerning XML Schema and its forerunners, see
WDVL's XML Schema page.
This collaborative site surfaced in the summer of 2000.
"The first testing effort hosted here addresses XML conformance. It
includes test harnesses for Java (with SAX/SAX2) and for
JavaScript (with DOM/COM). The second such effort is currently
in its early stages, and addresses XML Schema conformance.
Other projects discussed include DOM testing, performance
measurement, XSLT conformance."
See also Robin Cover's XML Conformance page.
Simon St. Laurent, the author of several fine XML books
(including XML: A Primer,
Building XML Applications, and
Inside XML DTDs: Scientific and Technical)
has written a number of thought-provoking articles, such as
"Letting Go: The Futures of XML and SGML" and
"A Proposal for the Representation of XML DTDs as XML documents".
Especially recommended:
"Cement Shoes for XML?",
which discusses problems in vendor support for XML, and
"An Outsider's Guide to the W3C"
and presentation from 2000:
XML Schemas: Setting Rules for XML Documents - March 2000;
Common XML: Guidelines for Interoperability- March 2000;
Scripting Languages for XML: Real Processing with Lightweight Tools- March 2000; and
XML Linking Language: Creating Powerful and Flexible Hypertext Structures - Updated March 2000.
Ronald Bourret writes:
"This paper briefly discusses the relationship between XML and databases and describes some of the types of
software available to process XML documents with databases. Although it is not intended to be exhaustive, I
hope that it describes some of the major issues in using XML with databases. It is somewhat biased towards
relational databases simply because that is where my experience is."
See the related large collection,
XML Database Products
also by Ronald Bourret.
See his growing list XML Database papers and presentations.
Zvon.org's XDB is an XML document repository providing structured storage of XML
data, at present using an RDBMS mapping over PostgreSQL. As the first
step, our plan is to develop a lightweight XML persistent storage engine
on top of a relational database backend to come up with a UI and API in
short time and replace it by our native XML storage system in the second
step to satisfy complex XML processing requirements. XDB is intended to
offer a fast, reliable and scalable XML database framework with powerful
querying techniques according to W3C standards (XPath, XML Query) and
standard XML processing APIs (SAX, DOM).
Some very detailed presentations on various topics: XML Basics and Advanced,
DTDs, XML Schema, XSLT, SAX, DOM, XLink and XPointer, XML and Java, JDOM, etc.
The XML media types Request for Comments 3023 (Jan. 2001)
"standardizes five new media types -- text/xml,
application/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, application/xml-
external-parsed-entity, and application/xml-dtd -- for use in
exchanging network entities that are related to the Extensible Markup
Language (XML). This document also standardizes a convention (using
the suffix '+xml') for naming media types outside of these five types
when those media types represent XML MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) entities." RFC 3023 was coauthored by Murata Makoto,
xmlhack contributing editor Simon St.Laurent, and Dan Kohn
Tim Bray wrote a great article for XML.com about Resource Description
Framework (RDF) and why is should be of interest to us.
The article covers the significance of metadata and the
relationship between RDF and XML. Read more
about RDF and Metadata by checking out the
W3C specs.
This mailing list includes many technical discussions concerning XML and DTDs. The link
is to the the list's searchable mail archive. As of April 2000, XML.org has had a
difficult time
making xml-dev function smoothly, unfortunately.
See also the
older xml-dev archives,
from Feb. 1997 to early Feb. 2000, orginally hosted by XML pioneer,
Peter Murray-Rust.
