Re: XML example [was RE: Difference 'twixt XHTML and XML?]

G'Day Tamara,

This is the beginners list, so hopefully I'm not going to frighten anyone 
away with potentially radical statements.

At 08:24 5/05/00 -0500, Tamara Abbey wrote:
>Thank you for the example, but why does it require IE and why is there a 
>warning when I clicked the link. I will go back and view it in IE, but, 
>just for the sake of argument, that's not very cross-browser from what I 
>can see.

I'm not sure on the warning - it probably depends on your browser settings, 
and after I've had the same useless "warning" pop up several times I'm 
inclined to check that little box that says "never warn me again" :)

As for cross-browser compatibility - basically all the other browsers were 
released before XML became a standard.  It's the next generation of 
browsers that will be using XML - for example Netscape 6 also supports 
it.  XHTML is a means of writing HTML code that will be backward-compatible 
with old browsers and forward-compatible with future browsers.

In the long run the whole aim of XML is to be device independent or 
"cross-browser" friendly.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) estimates that the standard 
computer/browser combination will account for only 50% of web usage by 
2001.  Common sense (or at least my way of thinking) says compare the 
number of computers per household with the number of mobile phones - you 
can easily see that there is a vast market waiting to be capitalised 
upon.  There are numerous efforts currently underway in this field, but the 
technology is still a little too immature at this stage.

(I'm sure Gio if he's still around will point out the oxymoron of 
associating "my way of thinking" with "common sense" :)

>So, if you don't mind educating this stubborn student, why would I start 
>using XML if you have to have IE to see it?

Don't get locked into thinking HTML is only used for public websites.  Did 
you know that many "help files" that come with Windows programs are written 
in "compiled HTML"? Many companies use internal websites or intranets - and 
with internal systems its possible to set "standard operating environments" 
which guarantee your viewers will be using a certain browser.

If you know that IE5 exists on a users desktop (ie. when designing for an 
intranet or alternatively authoring help files for programs on the Win2000 
platform) then you can take advantages of XML right now!!

There are also a number of minority browsers that are "bi-lingual" in that 
they understand some XML languages in addition to "just HTML".  As the 
devices of the future start impacting on our market, market forces will 
compel us to change - the ecommerce $$$ with drive it.

That's all just MHO, but hope it helps :)


Chris Higgs <c.higgs(at)landfood.unimelb.edu.au>
Institute of Land and Food Resources
University of Melbourne http://www.landfood.unimelb.edu.au

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