XML for the Masses

Jonathan Eisenzopf

Whirlwind Interactive

Thursday, 11:45 in Rangos III.

By now, XML fever has bubbled up through many IT organizations and seeped into most developer publications. Unfortunately, many people who  use and develop the Web have been left behind scratching their heads, wondering when XML will become an easy and practical alternative to HTML. This presentation will cover new XML developments in the Perl community  and offer several case studies that demonstrate the usefulness of XML.

Supporting the various Web browsers with varying degrees of support for HTML, Javascript, and CSS is extremely difficult at best. The recent addition of mobile devices like phones and Palm Pilots combined with the growing number of Internet devices will make it impossible to optimize a Web site for all clients. In the first study, XML will  be utilized as a single source format for Web documents. The Web server will dynamically deliver the requested document in the proper format based on the type of browser or device that makes the request.
 
One of the difficulties Web sites will have is the transition from HTML to XML. The World Wide Web Consortium has proposed a transitional format called XHTML, which will make it easier to convert to XML. The second case study will demonstrate the HTML to XML conversion process and explore the benefits of extending XHTML to include additional information.

As businesses move to the Web, sites are creating partnerships that might include the exchange of products, marketing, or content. These partnerships require an effective system that can perform queries and transactions between disparate systems. The third study will explore the use of XML-RPC as a method of passing information
between applications.

Biography:
Jonathan Eisenzopf is the CTO at Whirlwind Interactive, a Web site integrator based in the Washington D.C. area.
 

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