Talk:XML/Archive 2

Advantages/Disadvantages

The Advantages/Disadvantages in the "Critique" section could be organized better, I believe. Instead of having separate "advantages" and "disadvantages" sections, I think it would be better if the advantages and disadvantages were interleaved so that related points could be together. For example, there are a couple of pros and cons related to it being text-based. There are also a couple of pros and cons related to the data model.

Another problem with that section is that an advantage/disadvantage needs a point of reference. For example, "it is text-based" is not an advantage over other text-based formats. Each pro/con should be something like "it is XXX, while formats like X, Y, and Z are not".

The Advantage/Disadvantage section is segmented the way it is because all alternate attempts at structure have proven entirely inappropriate. For example, the previous formatting of this section consisted of entirely unreferenced and self-contradictory "back and forth" with one sentence by a proponent, quickly followed by a sentence tacked on later by an opponent, subsequently followed by a cutting retort from yet another proponent -- each person adding in content without regard to the merits of the "opposing view" ... and without regard to whether their points had already been made by someone else already.

The result was a mish-mash of contradictory and irrelevant Non sequitur that was simply unreadable -- and almost all of it was unsupported by cites. The current section represents a compromise to lift the article out of that unmaintainable morass. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 23:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Populating an xml database

I have seen several basic XML tutorials and they talk about creating an XML database by typing lines such as:

 <name>John</name>
 <age>34</age>

etc. etc That's understood. But,

what if I have a comma or tab separated text file of 1000's of names? Surely I do not have to write:

<name></name>

1000's of times?

So how do I import the data from a text file?

???? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pokerscouse (talk • contribs) 16:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

You write some code that loops through the lines of data in your CSV file, and outputs the correct XML for each item. There would be a neat way to do this in just about any current programming or scripting language. Maybe, if you're less technical, you could import it into a spreadsheet, then export the spreadsheet as something like HTML, but you'd have little real control over the XML element names etc. --Nigelj 20:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone answer this re xml?

I am studying XML. I find that some of the commands in the tutorial I am using, do not produce brower display results that the author says they should, particularly when the @ symbol is used. I only have IE 5.5 and cannot upgrade to 6.0 because that is not possible without an internet connection, which I do not have in my dingy flat. Is I.E. 5.5 the cause? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pokerscouse (talk • contribs) 15:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

This talk page is here to discuss improvements to the article on XML. It is not a place to get help or assistance on usage of XML, and I suggest you look for one of the many forums, having XML/Web technologies as topics, available on the net in order to seek answers to your questions. Jerazol 15:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Empty elements in XHTML

I removed the following line from section XML#Empty elements:

Note that they may, however, be treated differently if they were examples from XHTML that was intended for processing by various current and historical web browsers.

The above sentence flasely suggests XHTML treats <foo></foo> differently than <foo/>. It's true that historical browsers will choke on the abbreviated form, but so what? Old browsers choke on CDATA sections as well. —Ryan 10:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually, this is true for "modern" browsers like Firefox and IE 6 as well. For instance, the <script> or <textarea> element, to mention some, cannot be written as empty elements. This is though, irellevant, imo. Since this is an article on XML I don't find it appropriate to mention special case applications deviating from the XML-standard. Jerazol 10:38, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

WML

I apologize if you do not want this here, but I invite all that have XML knowledge to participate in the WML group.-- Nirelan

Arcane ideas such as nillability

Database-related data transfer has been supported with arcane ideas such as nillability. I can't find any supporting information as to why nillability (ie. nullability?) is arcane (or why people think it is). Christiancatchpole 00:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Free vs Free software

Imo, it doesn't really make any sense to write "free software" in this context: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=XML&diff=116854292&oldid=116845869

The reason why I reverted it the first time round, was that I read the diff wrong, thinking that he had added "software", not removed it. If you want to use "free software" instead of just "free", the sentances should probably be rewritten. Jerazol 20:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Game Mods

In some games, XML files are used as mods, there should be something on that. 72.130.236.182 19:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Not really. Remember; XML is a general markup form and can have a wide variety of applications. This does not warrant inclusion just because some games utilise XML for mods. Said games can use INI, SQL, etc. Sicanjal 12:57, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Bullet List in Criticism Section has too much debate in it

I was looking for the pros and cons of xml and in the criticisms section, almost every bullet item had with the criticism a rebuttal (withing the bulleted section). A couple even looked to have a rebuttal to the rebuttal. A bulleted list by its nature is intended to transmit clear and concise/short points. Adding rebuttals into the bulleted text and turning each point into a debate runs counter to that and makes the section less clear. I suggest it would be better to clean up the section and give each criticism its own point. Should someone want to rebut them they could do it in a short summary below the bullet list. After all, the section is titled 'criticisms', not 'debates'. You may disagree with them, but a point wouldn't still be there if enough people disagreed with it (i.e. there must be more than a few people who have the same criticism). Let the point be made clearly and debate it elsewhere. Theshowmecanuck 23:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yup. The problem is not likely to go away, however, since there is doubtless a substantial number of contributors to this article who do not believe "XML cricitisms" of any sort are valid to begin with. Notice how pristine and concise the "Strengths" section is compared to the "Criticisms" section? You are free to clean up the section yourself, but just be ready to defend your actions. (See also Holy_War). dr.ef.tymac 23:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I've made some substantial editing to this section, and I'm sure several will disagree with my edits. I think having a discussion on weather a criticism is valid or not in the article is nonsense, so let's try to agree on which criticisms can be seen as valid and get reasonable sources for these criticisms. Jerazol 08:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Although your "scortched earth" approach to editing may be a matter of some concern, I agree in principle with your efforts. I also agree with your point on "validity" ... a comment regarding cites is (I think) appropriate here. dr.ef.tymac 20:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: I've added cites and given some attention to the "criticisms" section. That's all I have energy for (for now) but there is still some removed "discussion board" content that may be worth re-adding (at least as qualifying footnotes). Also there are probably some typos to be cleaned up. dr.ef.tymac 21:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The section: "criticisms" really should be changed to "weaknesses", and remove some of the citations. There are no citations for the Strengths, and some of them are questionable (e.g. XML is usually not human-readable in practice). Come on, the weaknesses of XML are pretty obvious, just as some of the strengths are. --The_Riddler 07:48, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

1) change "criticisms" to "weaknesses": Disagree. If you read the cited materials, you will notice not every criticism is characterized as a "flaw" with XML itself. Some simply say XML is not the right tool for every job. Do you say it is a "weakness" that a hammer is not a drill?

2) remove citations: Disagree. The opposite is actually appropriate, every item not yet cited in that section should be cited. We've already seen it devolve into a debate forum, requiring cites is a reasonable measure to combat that tendency. Grab some reliable sources and start helping out by adding cites.

3) general problems with wording: Agree. I do think you indirectly identified a different problem, the term "strengths" is not really appopriate either, no more than "weaknesses" I will address this. dr.ef.tymac 14:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

4) change "criticisms" to "weaknesses": Disagree. It seems to be a fairly standard section heading for quite a large number of articles in the Wikipedia. Especially those relating to programming and programming languages. It doesn't make sense to rename it for this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Theshowmecanuck (talk • contribs) 20:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

Added infos to alleviate two of the criticisms : higher storage transmission and processing costs (cf. Binary XML); and no intrisics data types (cf. XML schema). Hervegirod 11:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Kept the infos, but moved them to footnotes. People who are interested in the nuances can look there, and the bulleted lists still remain uncluttered, which was the original rationale for the recent major change to begin with. dr.ef.tymac 16:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Good idea, I agree with that ! Hervegirod 20:17, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Wrong statement about comments

I deleted the following text:

“ Note that the initial and final whitespace is obligatory; the following is not well-formed:

 <!--Invalid comment-->

”

I can't find anything in the spec which supports this proposition. --Cameltrader 21:44, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Page for various XML schemas?

As the top of this article says, there are thousands of XML-based application languages (MathML, RSS, SVG, DocBook, ChemML, etc). Is there a wiki page which lists all of these? I could not find such a page, but it would be very useful to many, I'm sure. JECompton 02:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Just go to Category:XML-based_standards. The XML article category itself is huge and sorely in need of organization. Nevertheless, you won't have trouble finding loads of information if you are willing to hunt and click. dr.ef.tymac 02:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much. Even in its unorganized state, it is helpful to me at least as a listing of some specs out there.JECompton 02:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I added some short explanations on the article List of XML markup languages (no more than one sentence, just to present each language). It is not finished yet, but I thought it could be useful. Hervegirod 09:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Data or document oriented XML

I removed Tpox's contribution which was summarizing Bob DuCharme's "Documents vs. Data, Schemas vs. Schemas" conference paper. Although I agree that the article should mention what kind of information gets modeled in XML, DuCharme's assertion that XML documents are either data or document centric (but sometimes neither or both), seems to be primarily just his own observation that he makes for the purpose of providing possible criteria for the selection of a schema language. I don't see evidence that this is a meaningful distinction in general, even if it is one that some people do choose to make, especially since he admits that there are often exceptions. Likewise, it's not particularly noteworthy or crucial to the reader's understanding of XML. —mjb 09:39, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Just passing through

I noticed under Well-formed and Valid XML Documents --> Well-formed documents, the statement "contents of this subsection should be absorbed above". True or not, this comment seemed more appropriate on the talk page than within the entry itself. I will remove it, but I leave the comment here for others to determine its validity. 65.56.85.32 20:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

XML is not a true subset of SGML

The introduction should be claried. Though XML started as a subset of SGML, it is not a true subset as it adds features compared to SGML, and XML parsing incompatible with SGML (an SGML parser can not parse XML). Carewolf 12:01, 16 August 2007 (UTC) In fact with the SGML Web Annex, SGML was extended so that XML was (once again)a true subset. --Nantonos 20:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

EXI

The article needs to mention Efficient XML Interchange (EXI) http://www.w3.org/XML/EXI/ --Nantonos 20:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This is correct! EXI will be THE binary standard, and it is convertable from/to XML without loss of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.141.92.250 (talk) 14:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)