Articles by Category: XML

Is DITA going to tip?

JoAnn Hackos has written an article about the growing popularity of DITA, as a format for managing structured content. To quote:

Obviously, something else must influence XML authoring if it is to move past the tipping point. That "something else" is arguably DITA. DITA represents an enormous advantage to the information-development community. For the first time, it provides us with an informational architecture standard around topic-based authoring that is unique to technical information. It takes us out of the world as defined by book publishers, which has provided us with a basically flawed paradigm for 50 years or more. It gives us a unique identity by pushing us toward semantic markup that enhances the quality of our text. It gives us a context with which to support our need for efficiency, consistency, and effective branding of our content for practiced, action-minded consumers of information. It’s just what technical information developers need to build a unique opportunity for recognition and increased credibility in our otherwise product-oriented world.

[Thanks to Scott Abel.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:55 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Introducing SKOS

Peter Mikhalenko has written an article that introduces SKOS. To quote:

SKOS (Simple Knowledge Organization System), recently introduced by the W3C, is a model for expressing knowledge organization systems in a machine-understandable way, within the framework of the Semantic Web. The SKOS Core Vocabulary is an RDF (Resource Description Framework) application. Using RDF allows data to be linked and merged with other RDF data by Semantic Web applications. SKOS Core provides a model for expressing the basic structure and content of concept schemes, including thesauri, classification schemes, subject heading lists, taxonomies, terminologies, glossaries, and other types of controlled vocabulary. This article will provide some examples for using SKOS and discuss the general principles of building such knowledge bases.

The W3C has, in my opinion at least, a very poor record on releasing standards that make sense or can be used. So while I'm prepared to give SKOS a chance, I'm coming from a sceptical starting point ...

Posted by jamesr at 09:30 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Google creating information architecture XML format?

Joshua Porter reports that google has published a new XML format for site maps. To quote:

Google is trying out and releasing to the world (via Creative Commons license) a new XML format for site maps. This new format is an XML representation of your web site that Search Engines would read upon entering your site, much like they read the robots.txt file now.

Posted by jamesr at 05:58 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

OpenDocument 1.0

Tim Bray has commented on the announcement of OpenDocument 1.0. To quote:

Right now, it is the only XML office document format that is standardized, and it is also the only one that is complete; Microsoft's offering is full of holes, starting with the absence of PowerPoint. It's also completely 100% free of intellectual-property issues, anyone can use it for anything anytime anywhere without asking anyone first. Let me put it this way: if you occasionally create documents or spreadsheets or presentations, and if you think that you'd like to own them, independent of your Office software vendor, well, you have exactly one choice: OpenDocument.

It's going to be interesting to see what this might mean for records management, archiving and digital preservation...

Posted by jamesr at 10:48 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

XML content management and single-sourcing

Rick Sapir has written an article on XML content management and single-sourcing. To quote:

Creating an XML-based Content Management System to single-source technical publications is as simple as 1 - 2 - 3. Rather than focusing on any single tool or solution (and thereby forcing users to change to match the tool), this article describes one possible three-step process for using XML to single source your content deliverables. It is up to the tool providers to create a tool that matches the need.

Posted by jamesr at 10:16 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Design patterns for information architecture with DITA map domains

Erik Hennum, Don Day, John Hunt and Dave A. Schell have written an article on design patterns for DITA. To quote:

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) provides maps for assembling topics into deliverables. By specializing the map elements, you can define a formal information architecture for your deliverables. This architecture provides guidance to authors on how to organize topics and lets processes recognize your organizing principles, resulting in a consistent, clear experience for your users.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 12:14 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information architecture, XML

An XML architecture for technical documentation: DITA

Don Day, Erik Hennum, John Hunt, Michael Priestley, David Schell and Nancy Harrison have written an article on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA). To quote:

DITA is an architecture for creating topic-oriented, information-typed content that can be reused and single-sourced in a variety of ways. It is also an architecture for creating new information types and describing new information domains, allowing groups to create very specific, targeted document type definitions using a process called specialization, while at the same time reusing common output transforms and design rules. We discuss several methods that can be used to extend DITA's basic topic types.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 12:00 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Introduction to structured content management with XML

Kay Ethier and Scott Abel have written an article on structured content and XML, in the context of content management systems. To quote:

At the heart of managing content for re-use, however lies the job of exposing the underlying structure of that information. This article is meant to serve as an introductory primer on how to define and use information structure when managing content.

Posted by jamesr at 11:09 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Topic Maps awareness seminar at the National Library of Australia

Alexander Johannesen has shared his PowerPoint slides from a recent Topic Maps awareness seminar he gave in Canberra. To quote:

On Friday I held a Topic Maps awareness seminar here at the National Library of Australia, and in addition to being well received and jolly good for beginners and learners, it was also done with a 112 slides bullet-point free PowerPoint presentation!

Posted by jamesr at 05:30 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Here is a how to topic maps, Sir!

Alexander Johannesen has written an article on topic maps. To quote:

This is not a tutorial. This is an essay written to be preceding a tutorial I'm writing about Topic Maps and how to Sort your CD collection with it, which in itself will come in parts. The reason for this prelude is two-edged; philosophy vs. real-life; There is a great deal of philosophy involved in working with Topic Maps. Not in the sense of arguing for extentionalism or purport a theory of when cats die in boxes, but in the sense of epistemology, the philosophy of learning. It is about how we perceive things, how human cognition works, about how we label things, how we categorise and find our way in the vast information layer between our brains and our tools.

Posted by jamesr at 09:37 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

DocBook for websites

I've just come across a variation of DocBook for websites, which could be of interest to those working in the XML world. To quote:

This small, somewhat contrived website demonstrates the Website document type. Website provides a system for building static Websites from XML content.

A text-only version is also available, demonstrating how multiple presentations can be derived from the same sources.

[Thanks to David Cramer.]

Posted by jamesr at 06:31 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

TMAPI 1.0 Alpha Release: Common Topic Map Application Programming Interface

Robin Cover reports on the alpha release of TMAPI, a common API for accessing topic maps. To quote:

The TMAPI "Common Topic Map Application Programming Interface" specification defines a set of core interfaces which must be implemented by a compliant application as well as a set of additional interfaces which may be implemented by a compliant application or which may be built upon the core interfaces." According to the project announcement of April 8, 2004, the goal of TMAPI is "to allow developers to learn and use just one programming API for work with any topic map processing engine — improving code portability and reducing learning curve. TMAPI has been developed in an open process by developers working on topic map processors and topic map applications, and has been placed into the public domain; there are no restrictions on its use."

Posted by jamesr at 12:32 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Why is it so hard to lean topicmaps?

Peter Van Dijck has posted a blog entry about how hard it is to learn topicmaps. To quote:

So when you're interested in topicmaps, you read the specs or one of these tutorials, and unless you're familiar with data models and a bunch of advanced metadata concepts (reification anyone?), it's gonna blow your head. Many people give up right there. The distance between the topicmap model and a real life application seems larger than the distance between the relational database model and a real life application.

I think Peter has definitely hit the key issue with topic maps, and it certainly matches my personal experience.

Posted by jamesr at 12:33 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Metadata? Thesauri? Taxonomies? Topic Maps!

Lars Marius Garshol e-mailed me today to tell me about his new new article on topic maps and information architecture. To quote:

Information architects have so far applied known and well-tried tools from library science to solve this problem, and now topic maps are sailing up as another potential tool for information architects. This raises the question of how topic maps compare with the traditional solutions, and that is the question this paper attempts to address. The paper argues that topic maps go beyond the traditional solutions in the sense that it provides a framework within which they can be represented as they are, but also extended in ways which significantly improve information retrieval.

(Lars: I promise I will print this off, read it in a spare moment, and get back to you on whether this has finally helped topic maps to sink into my brain.)

Posted by jamesr at 08:48 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

A transforming experience for content management?

Steve Heckler has written an article on XSLT 2.0 and content management. To quote:

During the past five years, XSLT (Extensible Style Sheet Language Transformation) has emerged as the “Babelfish” of the XML world, translating XML documents into other XML and text formats. XSLT combines a versatile, tag-based scripting language with XPath, a powerful language for selecting specific sections or data within XML documents. The advent of XSLT 2.0 could mean even more power and capability for XML-based content management systems.

Posted by jamesr at 05:44 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Living with topic maps and RDF

Lars Marius Garshol has written an article on a number of technologies, including topic maps and RDF. To quote:

This paper is about the relationship between the topic map and RDF standards families. It compares the two technologies and looks at ways to make it easier for users to live in a world were both technologies are used. This is done by looking at how to convert information back and forth between the two technologies, how to convert schema information, and how to do queries across both information representations. Ways to achieve all of these goals are presented.

[Thanks to Peter Van Dijck.]

Posted by jamesr at 02:55 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

New project : topic maps Wiki

Alexander Johannesen has started a project to develop a topic maps-based Wiki, which looks to be very interesting. To quote:

I've been planning a new project for some time, and this is the initial Release of Ideas. The project has been brewing for some time, but needs have arisen for me to actually get it up an running in a somewhat fast pace. I need a system for updating project areas with documentation, people involved, business cases, history and so forth (the usual suspects), more as a collaborative system more than specialised editors of content. Very much like a Wiki, but fixing the (for me) apparent flaws of current Wiki's.

[Thanks to Peter Van Dijck.]

Posted by jamesr at 02:52 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

New topic map tools

Peter Van Dijck has pointed out a few new topic map tools and approaches:

• tinyTIM: a very small easy to use (50kb jarsize) in memory Topic Map engine. It implements the TMAPI interfaces, so one can work with TopicMaps via the TMAPI standard. TMAPI will be what DOM is for XML.
• Database schema for topic maps, that can be implemented in a relational database.

[Thanks to Ease.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:07 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology Language (OWL)

Robin Cover reports on the release of a revised RDF and OWL recommendations. To quote:

The World Wide Web Consortium has announced "final approval of two key Semantic Web technologies, the revised Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL). RDF and OWL are Semantic Web standards that provide a framework for asset management, enterprise integration and the sharing and reuse of data on the Web. These standard formats for data sharing span application, enterprise, and community boundaries, since different types of users can share the same information even if they don't share the same software."

Posted by jamesr at 05:12 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

How to make a faceted classification and put It on the web

William Denton has written a truly excellent article on using faceted classification on the web, in which step-by-step practical details are provided on creating and applying faceted classification in the real world. To quote:

This paper will attempt to bridge the gap by giving procedures and advice on all the steps involved in making a faceted classification and putting it on the web. Web people will benefit by having a rigorous seven-step process to follow for creating faceted classifications, and librarians will benefit by understanding how to store such a classification on a computer and make it available on the web. The paper is meant for both webmasters and information architects who do not know a lot about library and information science, and librarians who do not know a lot about building databases and web sites. The classifications are meant for small or medium-sized sets of things, meant to go on public or private web sites, when there is a need to organize items for which no existing classification will do. It is certainly not the intent of this paper to show how to build another universal classification, nor to describe how a library that uses a faceted classification scheme can put their catalogue online.

[Thanks to Catalogablog.]

Posted by jamesr at 09:48 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

RELAX NG now a full ISO International Standard

Michael Smith has forwarded the announcement that RELAX NG is now a full ISO standard (this is an alternative to the W3C schema specification, for those who are into XML). To quote:

RELAX NG was developed under the guidance of Clark and MURATA Makoto (creator of the original RELAX schema language) and the members of the RELAX NG technical committee at OASIS. Work on making it an ISO standard was subsequently taken on by the Document Description and Processing Languages subcommittee of the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34), as part of a larger project, the Document Schema Definition Language (DSDL).

Posted by jamesr at 08:26 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Can XML drive taxonomies and categorisation?

Bill Trippe has written an article on XML and taxonomies. To quote:

When it comes to a specific question, such as, "How does XML support taxonomy development and usage?" the answers that come forth can be far-flung, disparate, and confusing. The waters get muddied further if you tune into all the announcements from the vendors, industry groups, and analysts who have opinions about such matters. What you might call a taxonomy, a vendor might call a thesaurus, or vice versa. What one vendor accomplishes automatically, the next one might accomplish with some manual intervention, and so on.

Posted by jamesr at 05:50 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Atom as a replacement to RSS?

Robin Cover writes about the Atom specification, slated as a replacement to RSS. To quote:

The Atom Project, to the extent that anyone can declare authoritatively what it is, or is quintessentially meant to support, is "an initiative to develop a common syntax for syndication, archiving, and publishing." Sam Ruby (Emerging Technologies Group, IBM) is most often credited for originating the core ideas, and design work spread across several wikis and weblog Internet sites is now being shared by some of the brightest developer minds focused upon the future of Web content creation and distribution.

The developers agree that Atom "will be vendor neutral, implemented by everybody, freely extensible by anybody, and cleanly and thoroughly specified." Atom is sometimes characterized as the successor to RSS (Really Simple Syndication or RDF Site Summary), which is variably used for news headline syndication, website metadata description, and content syndication. Like RSS, Atom is being created through an informal consensus process by volunteers in the Web developer community at large.

Posted by jamesr at 11:13 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Updates to XML standards for news OK'd

A press release today heralded the announcement of updated XML news standards. To quote:

The International Press Telecommunications Council approved version 3.2 of News Industry Text Format, or NITF, and version 1.2 of the NewsML standard. The updates provide more flexibility for suppliers of news feeds and operators of online sites that receive them.

Both NewsML and NITF are used by the major news agencies to deliver their news in XML, or extensible markup language. The updated versions contain new functionality requested by news agencies.

Posted by jamesr at 11:30 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Why use DITA to produce HTML deliverables?

A number of IBM folk have jointly written an article on the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), one of the XML-based formats for managing content authoring and publishing. To quote:

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based format for structuring and authoring technical content. This article explores advantages DITA provides for producing HTML content -- including easy global changes, portability through standards, superior linking and Web management, conditional processing, content and design reuse, and better writing through focused content. DITA consolidates all of the benefits in a consistent, overall information architecture that can evolve and grow along with your product information needs and delivery modes, and with the evolution of standard tools for delivering XML as the presentation mechanism.

Posted by jamesr at 11:54 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information architecture, XML

Semantic anchors for XML

Uche Ogbuji has written an article about semantic transparency in XML, that is, actually conveying information between two parties, not just XML tags. To quote:

XML syntax is just the foundation for data interoperability. The next step is semantic transparency. Some groups are working to address this by defining entire document formats to be adopted wholesale, while other groups are working on ways to express common terminology and concepts at a more granular level. In this instalment, Uche Ogbuji looks at XML Topic Maps Published Subjects and Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF), two ideas that take the granular approach by seeking to provide anchors in the semantic stream.

Posted by jamesr at 11:27 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Taking the pulse of XML editing

Kendall Grant Clark has written an article on the current state of XML editing tools. To quote:

When I got a chance recently to attend a one-day conference of authoring and editing vendors, my only question was whether the conference was pitched to developers or managers. I would ordinarily avoid a conference pitched to managers because, well, I'm not a manager. But in this case it was important because I wanted to check my views, hunches, and surmises about what's natural and simple about creating XML against the views, hunches, and surmises of people who are interested, invested, but not expert in XML.

In the rest of this column I do two things: first, I describe the interesting bits of the most interesting vendor presentations I saw at a one-day conference in the Washington, DC, metro area earlier this week; second, I offer some impressions and opinions about the state of XML tools represented by these vendors.

Posted by jamesr at 05:43 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Storing your XML

Bill Trippe has written a blog entry on storing your XML. To quote:

Many organizations are now working with XML data in one or more applications. As the use of XML grows, an important question arises - where should XML data be stored?

Posted by jamesr at 06:28 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Version 1.0

Robin Cover reports on the release of Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Version 1.0. To quote:

The BPMI Notation Working Group has announced the release of a public draft for the Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN Version 1.0). The BPMN specification "provides a graphical notation for expressing business processes in a Business Process Diagram (BPD). The objective of BPMN is to support process management by both technical users and business users by providing a notation that is intuitive to business users yet able to represent complex process semantics."

Posted by jamesr at 02:42 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

RDF: Ready for prime time

Shelley Powers writes about the growing adoption of RDF (Resource Description Framework) in the real-world. To quote:

Considering that I'm "bringing on a book" on RDF this month, I thought it appropriate to answer Marc's plea for meaningful, working examples of RDF apps and services, especially those that work with other RDF-based services. My problem, though, is that I have only a limited amount of time and space in this article; I can only cover a few of them. However, best to just start, but first, a little digression into RDF and XML.

Posted by jamesr at 03:45 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

XML and content management systems

I've released my latest KM Column article, this one exploring a very hot topic at the moment: XML and content management systems. To quote:

July KM Column: This article explores the role of XML in the context of content management systems, focusing specifically on the business issues.

Feedback appreciated...

Posted by jamesr at 11:04 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, James' articles, XML

XML for federation and content management services

Content-Wire reports on recent activities relating to ebXML and content management. To quote:

New enhancements and features in the Version 2.5 release include:

(1) Content based event subscription and notification;

(2) content management services, supporting automatic semantic content validation, automatic content cataloging, and plug-in support for user-defined content management services;

(3) a distributed registry based on a federated model. The Distributed Registry includes features for federated query support, linking of content and metadata across registry boundaries, replication of content and metadata among registries, and moving of content and metadata from one registry to another as needed.

I don't really know what this means in practice, but I will endeavour to find out and report back...

Posted by jamesr at 06:44 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

OWL Web Ontology Language: XML syntax

The W3C has released an XML presentation syntax for the OWL Web Ontology Language. To quote:

This document specifies XML presentation syntax for OWL, which is defined as a dialect similar to OWL Abstract Syntax [OWL Semantics]. It is not intended to be a normative specification. Instead, it represents a suggestion of one possible XML presentation syntax for OWL.

Like most of us, I'm personally not sure I understand what an ontology is in practice, but you can read more on the W3C site.

[Thanks to ia/.]

Posted by jamesr at 01:20 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

XML tagset and DTDs for journal publishing, archiving, and interchange

Robin Cover reports on the recent release by the US National Library of Medicine of an XML tagset and DTDs for journal publishing. To quote:

The intent of this DTD Suite is to 'preserve the intellectual content of journals independent of the form in which that content was originally delivered'. The tags defined here will be used to describe journal articles that originate with many publishers and societies but whose content will be stored in repositories, such as the NLM PubMed Central repository. Therefore, the Suite has been optimized for conversion from a variety of journal source DTDs, with the intent of providing a single format in which publishers can deliver their content to a wide range of archives.

Posted by jamesr at 10:02 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Vex - a visual editor for XML

John Krasnay has just released a new Java-based visual XML editor. While I haven't downloaded it yet, there is a tremendous need for better tools in this area, so I wish him the best of luck. To quote:

VEX is a Java Swing application that provides a word processor-like interface for editing XML documents. It is targeted toward users of XML schemas like DocBook and XHTML that represent human-readable documents.

Posted by jamesr at 11:52 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

W3C releases ten working drafts for XQuery, XSLT, and XPath

Robin Cover reports on the recent release of ten working drafts for XQuery, XSLT, and XPath by the W3C. To quote:

Through collaborative and coordinated effort between W3C's XML Query Working Group and XSL Working Group, a collection of ten updated working draft specifications has been issued for public review and comment. XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Data Model and XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Functions and Operators are in Last Call WD status through June 30, 2003. XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0, XQuery 1.0, and other specifications are dependent upon the data model, functions, and operators defined in these two WDs. Other working drafts include XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Formal Semantics, XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0, XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 2.0, XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, XML Query Use Cases, XML Query (XQuery) Requirements, XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0 Serialization, and XQuery and XPath Full-Text Requirements.

How is one to keep up with all of this?

Posted by jamesr at 11:02 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

XML, Meta Data and Other Paths to Unstructured Data

Robert Blumberg and Shaku Atre have written about the role of XML and metadata in managing unstructured data (ie. text). To quote:

Even though the ROI of mining unstructured data is unproven, given the potential value of this data, organizations should consider embarking on this strategic journey. In today's economy, making unstructured data available to decision-makers at all levels of the organization is required just to remain competitive.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:37 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information architecture, XML

Outline Markup Language

Danny Ayers has just announced the creation of a new specification: Outline Markup Language (OML). To quote:

OML stands for Outline Markup Language. It is a new specification designed to build upon the concepts found in OPML, with the goal of fixing some of its limitations.

Outlines are commonly used tools for creating lists that have structure. They are very simple in nature, and therefore, any specification that attempts to represent outline data must be simple. This is OPML's greatest strength. It's easy to learn. Our goal is retain that simplicity while providing flexibility.

Posted by jamesr at 05:56 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

XML for the Interchange of Document Images and Related Metadata

The Association of Information and Image Management (AIIM) has released a draft XML specification for the interchange of document images. To quote:

The standard is designed for use when an image is transferred between users, either within an organization or between organizations; the standardization of metadata permits the interchange to operate independently of the usage and storage on either side. XML is used to wrap the document content together with metadata that describes the package and the semantics of the contained image.

Posted by jamesr at 06:36 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Architectural design patterns for XML documents

Kyle Downey explores the use of design patterns in XML. This draws from the work originally done in the object-oriented programming field, and applies them to XML documents. To quote:

No one wants to reinvent the wheel. One way programmers try to reuse good ideas about object design is to look to catalogs of design patterns like, most famously, the Gang of Four's Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software (Gamma et. al.). XML has been used enough now that some high-level patterns are starting to emerge. Some patterns revolve around the low-level details of good schema design, like those put together by Dare Obasanjo in "W3C XML Schema Design Patterns"; but when you have a blank sheet of paper in front of you and you're ready to start designing your new XML format, you want patterns to guide you at a higher level. This article attempts to document a few whole-document design patterns that have proven themselves in the field.

[Thanks to Peter J. Bogaards.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:40 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Guidelines for implementing Dublin Core in XML

The Dublin Core Metadata Initiative has just released a proposed recommendation for implementing Dublin Core in XML. To quote:

This document provides guidelines for people implementing Dublin Core [DCMI] metadata applications using XML [XML]. It considers both simple (unqualified) DC and qualified DC applications. In each case, the underlying metadata model is described (in a syntax neutral way), followed by some specific guidelines for XML implementations. Some guidance on the use of non-DC metadata is also provided.

[Thanks to Catalogablog.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:58 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Getting started with XML in libraries

Eric Morgan has written a substantial (73 page) guide to getting started with XML in libraries. To quote:

Designed for librarians and library staff, this workshop introduces participants to the extensible markup language (XML) through numerous library examples, demonstrations, and structured hands-on exercises. Through this process you will be able to evaluate the uses of XML for making your library's data and information more accessible to people as well as computers. Examples include adding value to electronic texts, creating archival finding aids, and implementing standards compliant Web pages.

[Thanks to Catalogablog.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:54 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Streaming Transformations for XML (STX)

Oliver Becker, Paul Brown, Petr Cimprich introduce the world to a new XML transformation language: Streaming Transformations for XML (STX). To quote:

This article introduces Streaming Transformations for XML (STX), a template-based XML transformation language that operates on streams of SAX events. STX resembles XSLT 1.0, the tree-driven transformation language for XML, but STX offers unique features and advantages for some applications.

While XSLT rules the XML world, it is somewhat of a "poor man's" solution, plagued by speed issues, and massive memory requirements. So it's good to see an alternative come onto the stage, which gives me hope that XSLT has not entirely killed off innovation...

Posted by jamesr at 09:31 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Pace of XML innovation

Kendall Grant Clark has written about the apparent slowing rate of innovation in XML. To quote:

My reading of the recent history of technology, but especially computer technology, is that a decrease in the rate of innovation in a core area, such as XML, can be interpreted in one of two ways: either as a failure or as precisely the mark of success. Things inevitably slow down, either because the technology wasn't as deep or as rich or as central as its earliest adopters believed and suggested, and so it has played itself out; or because it was, and thus it has reached, more rapidly than anyone expected, a threshold past which further innovation is very difficult to achieve. Given the scope of XML's use -- particularly the range of kinds of XML application, from documents to data -- it's hard to draw any other conclusion but that it has been exceedingly successful and has reached a kind of natural threshold.

Personally, I'm not unhappy to see the enthusiasm for creating new "standards" slacken. As highlighted in this article, there is a lack of tools for XML, particularly for authors. Which is a real worry, considering that XML has been promising simple implementation for five years now...

Still, hopefully this pause will give a little time for the implementers to catch up, and for the tools to mature.

Posted by jamesr at 08:21 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Happy 5th birthday XML!

Apparently it's the fifth birthday of XML, sometime around now. This would explain today's flood of XML-related articles, most of which I haven't passed on...

Posted by jamesr at 01:35 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

What's happening with XML standards?

The Daily Times Monitor has written a summary of how the various XML standards fit together, by classifying everything into four layers. It's a good at-a-glance summary, although it does highlight the current complexities. To quote:

The XML family is growing from the original XML 1.0 specification, which was about 40 pages long, to a vast library of documents, many of which run to hundreds of pages.

Posted by jamesr at 08:24 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

New XForms activity

Robin Cover reports on new XForms activity within W3C. To quote:

A new XForms Activity has been created as part of the W3C Interaction Domain. The XForms Activity currently "hosts a single Working Group, and focuses on the development of W3C specifications for the next generation of Web forms. More flexible than previous HTML and XHTML form technologies, W3C XForms separate purpose, presentation, and data. The Activity is producing advanced forms logic, improved internationalization, and rich user interface capabilities. Whereas the current design of Web forms does not separate the purpose from the presentation of a form, XForms are comprised of separate sections that describe what the form does, and how the form looks. This allows for flexible presentation options, including classic XHTML forms, to be attached to an XML form definition."

Posted by jamesr at 08:30 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Introduction to XFML

Peter Van Dijck has written an introduction to XFML for xml.com. To quote:

XFML is a simple XML format for exchanging metadata in the form of faceted hierarchies, sometimes called taxonomies. Its basic building blocks are topics, also called categories. XFML won't solve all your metadata needs. It's focused on interchanging faceted classification and indexing data.

Posted by jamesr at 04:25 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

RDF primer released

On January 23, a working draft was released for a RDF Primer. (RDF standing for "Resource Description Framework".) To quote:

This Primer is designed to provide the reader with the basic knowledge required to effectively use RDF. It introduces the basic concepts of RDF and describes its XML syntax. It describes how to define RDF vocabularies using the RDF Vocabulary Description Language, and gives an overview of some deployed RDF applications. It also describes the content and purpose of other RDF specification documents.

[Thanks to Catalogablog.]

Posted by jamesr at 08:32 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Powerpoints from this week's presentations

Well, the talks this week went well. The first was at Information Online 2003 on Web Services: Google, Amazon & Weblogs. Despite the very brief 20 minute length, I managed to cover some interesting topics, and was pleased to see a good amount of note-taking in the audience. [Powerpoint Presentation]

The second talk was at Turning on the Light Bulbs, a satellite event of Information Online. This was on Real World Content Management, and covered the need for a content management system, issues surrounding the purchase of a CMS, and how librarians can be involved in a CMS project. There was plenty of good questions, and lively discussions, which is always a good sign. [Powerpoint Presentation]

Posted by jamesr at 07:31 PM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations, Content management, XML

100 XML Acronyms

PerfectXML has released a list of the top 100 XML acronyms, with everything from CML (Chemical Markup Language) to X-KRSS (XML Key Registration Service Specification). This is a very cleanly laid-out page, with a brief description and URL provided for each acronym.

It's actually scary how useful this list is. (Scary because: why are there so many different specs, and how do we keep up with them all?)

Posted by jamesr at 10:39 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Web services: Google, Amazon & weblogs

At the last moment, I was asked to present a brief talk on Web Services for Information Online 2003. With the audience being primarily librarians, I have to think hard about how to tackle the subject.

I've now decided to keep it very practical, and look at some of the really interesting ways web services have been used, focusing on the Google API and Amazon API. There are certainly some novel applications, including:

• Googlism: "find out what Google.com thinks of you, your friends or anything!"
• Googlert: "an experimental free service which keeps you updated on what the web is saying about you, your products or your interests."
• Book Watch: combines both APIs to list the most-talked about books in the weblogging community.
• Amazon Light: a stripped-down Amazon search interface.
• Amazon Search in Flash: a really very different interface to Amazon.

(See also Erik Benson's Amazon API list for a substantial list of different uses of the Amazon API.)

Posted by jamesr at 10:06 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

What is RSS?

Mark Pilgrim (well known in the blogging community) has just written an introductory article on RSS. This walks through the various different versions of RSS, and provides XML examples. To quote:

RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.

Posted by jamesr at 08:45 AM | Permalink
Categories: Weblogs, XML

New XML-hypertext mailing list

xmlhack.com has started a new mailing list called xml-hypertext, which is described as "an open forum for the discussion of creating hypertext with XML. Appropriate subjects include technologies for linking and pointing, hypertext-oriented transformations, and interactions between XML and Web infrastructure.".

Posted by jamesr at 01:05 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Pros and cons of XML

zapthink has released a free report on the pros and cons of XML. This takes a pragmatic look at the world of XML, and identifies the following key findings:

• There are 18 key arguments favoring XML
• There are 9 key arguments challenging XML
• Does XML represent a revolutionary technology change or is it basically the same old thing in new packaging?
• There are compelling reasons for XML's longevity, but are matched by equally compelling challenges to its adoption and usage.
• There is an element of "religiousness" to various arguments on the pro and con side of XML.
• Ignore the hype and let your business needs determine your usage of XML
• Ignore the naysayers and evaluate how XML can truly impact your needs for the better

This is an excellent document: pragmatic, balanced and considered. Well worth a read.

Thanks to Joseph Martins.

Posted by jamesr at 10:46 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Test frameworks for XML?

Dimitris Dimitriadis writes about the urgent need for test frameworks for XML standards, highlighting the current lack of consistency across working groups. To quote:

The big question is why it's so difficult to implement some standards. Political aspects aside, specifications are often very complex documents (look at the current W3C Schema specification), to some degree unintelligible, and difficult to write conformance tests for. Further, realistic use cases don't always exist for use when developing an implementation. Even worse, some implementations are written for a number of specifications. Finally, there seems to be no way to enforce conformance of implementations, which in turn means that conformance is not an issue, which explains a lot about the existence of de facto standards and ad hoc solutions.

This article raises a lot of good points, and is well worth reading for anyone passionate about the future of XML.

Posted by jamesr at 09:26 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

New workflow specification

Robin Cover reports on the release of the new XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) by the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC). This is designed to standardise the way workflow is defined and implemented, thereby increasing interoperability. To quote:

Together with other WfMC standards, XPDL provides a framework for implementing business process management and workflow engines, and for designing, analyzing, and exchanging business processes. XPDL is the culmination of a fifteen-month effort by multiple vendors and users to provide a standard that satisfies the needs of diverse organizations. One of the key elements of the XPDL is its extensibility to handle information used by a variety of different tools. Based upon a limited number of entities that describe a workflow process definition ('Minimum Meta Model'), XPDL thus supports a number of differing approaches. The specification is intended for use by software vendors, system integrators, consultants and any other individual or organization concerned with the design, implementation, and analysis of business process management systems as well as with interoperability among workflow systems.

It will be interesting to see what the takeup (if any) is by the content management system vendors. I would guess that only the top-tier products are likely to have the resources to chase this one through...

Posted by jamesr at 02:41 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

XML encryption is finalised

Robin Cover reports on the recent release of the XML Encryption and Decryption by the W3C as a final Recommendation. To quote Robin's summary:

The Encryption document "specifies a process for encrypting data and representing the result in XML. The data may be arbitrary data (including an XML document), an XML element, or XML element content. The result of encrypting data is an XML Encryption element which contains or references the cipher data."

The Decryption Recommendation "specifies an XML Signature 'decryption transform' that enables XML Signature applications to distinguish between those XML Encryption structures that were encrypted before signing (and must not be decrypted) and those that were encrypted after signing (and must be decrypted) for the signature to validate."

Posted by jamesr at 01:40 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

e-Gov Technical Committee

Robin Cover summarises the news that OASIS has created an e-Gov Technical Committee, "providing an international forum for governments to voice their needs and requirements with respect to XML-based standards". Its mandate is as follows:

Bringing together government representatives from around the world, the OASIS e-Gov Technical Committee will support the modernization of government and assist in the electronic delivery of services to citizens and businesses through the coordination and adoption of XML standards. The OASIS e-Gov Technical Committee will identify and organize plans for the development of new standards. Their recommendations and requirements will be formally submitted to appropriate working groups within OASIS. New technical committees may be formed for needs that are not currently being addressed. Resources created through the TC will serve as a clearinghouse of information related to applicable specs/standards as well as activities and projects being conducted by Governments in the adoption of XML-based systems and standards.

Posted by jamesr at 11:26 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

XFML in action

Mark Pilgrim writes about his experiences at applying XFML (XML Faceted Markup Language) to his Dive into Accessibility resource. This is a really useful case-study that shows how faceted classification information can be converted into a range of navigation and searching tools, amongst other wonders. To quote:

Think of XFML as a way of expressing all the different cross-sections of a site. For example, each tip in Dive Into Accessibility discusses a specific technique, the general design principles the technique embodies, the type of people (expressed as character sketches) who would benefit from its implementation, the types of disabilities that would benefit, the web browsers involved, and (in some cases) even specific instructions for implementing the tip in various publishing tools.

Posted by jamesr at 02:11 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Comprehensive intro to XML security

Frederick Hirsch writes a mammoth (12 page) article on all aspects of XML security. He provides a high-level view of the issues and requirements, and then walks through each XML security standard in turn. To quote:

The XML Security standards include XML Digital Signature for integrity and signing solutions, XML Encryption for confidentiality, XML Key Management (XKMS) for public key registration, location and validation, Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) for conveying authentication, authorization and attribute assertions, XML Access Control Markup Language (XACML) for defining access control rules, and Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P) for defining privacy policies and preferences. Major use cases include securing Web Services (WS- Security) and Digital Rights Management (eXtensible Rights Markup Language 2.0 - XrML).

Definitely the article to read if you are looking at XML-based security systems.

Posted by jamesr at 10:27 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

New RDF resources

Shelley Powers provides an excellent summary of the new RDF documents published by the W3C. (RDF, the Resource Description Framework, is the W3C method for managing complex metadata, amongst other things.) To quote:

The W3C working group tasked to update and clarify the RDF specification recently released six new working drafts.

...

However, rather than signalling an increase in complexity of the RDF specification, the documents actually clarify it, primarily by separating its different aspects instead of keeping them bundled together in a confusing jumble of syntax, concept, and semantics. Additionally, two of the documents were written with very specific goals in mind: the Test Cases document aids RDF tool developers; the RDF Primer provides an introduction to RDF which is less formal than the specification itself.

Posted by jamesr at 08:41 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Resources on building an XML-based website

Catching up on a backlog of stories: John E. Simpson has written an article on learning to build websites using XML. In it, he points to a comprehensive set of websites, books and articles which help to sort out the tangle of useful XML technologies.

Posted by jamesr at 04:17 PM | Permalink
Categories: Web development, XML

Updated HTML and XHTML validator

The W3C has released an updated HTML and XHTML validator, which includes support for XHTML 1.1, MathML 2.0, additional character encodings, and more. You can either validate a URL, or directly upload the page to be checked.

(Read Robin Cover's news item for a good summary.)

Posted by jamesr at 04:12 PM | Permalink
Categories: Web development, XML

OASIS Open Office XML

The Register reports on the recent establishment of the OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee. The aim is to further develop a common set of XML standards for interoperability between Office packages (notable is the lack of Microsoft involvement).

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) has a reputation for driving practical efforts forward, standing in contrast with W3C's recent lack of direction. We may well see something come of this, and it certainly can't hurt...

Posted by jamesr at 01:54 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Topic maps in content management

Lars Marius Garshol recently e-mailed me, and pointed me his very interesting article on topic maps and content management. This talks about using an Integrated Topic Management System (ITMS) to provide a much more powerful management interface to the normal CMS repository. To quote:

The traditional CMS (Content Management System) has succeeded in solving some of the problems of managing content in a multi-user environment, but several aspects of such systems leave much to be desired. In particular, the organization of the information within a CMS has generally been its weakest point. Generally, CMS systems have used various ad-hoc models for organizing the content, which has tended to make their functionality less flexible than it might have been. In part for the same reason they have tended to make maintenance of the content unnecessarily difficult.

Topic maps [ISO13250] provide just what is needed: a model for organizing and describing information resources that is well designed, stable, and infinitely flexible. Adopting topic maps as the organizing principle of the CMS instead of an ad-hoc solution simplifies implementation of the CMS while greatly improving its utility and usability. The rest of this paper will be devoted to exploring how CMSs may make use of topic maps to build ITMSs.

This is certainly an issue that I've been wrestling with. Metadata management in a CMS typically ranges from woeful to merely ordinary, and what is needed is a "global view" of metadata.

The question is: what would this look like? I don't know. I will strike up a conversation with Lars and try to find out...

Posted by jamesr at 04:35 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information architecture, XML

A future for the Resource Description Framework (RDF)?

Kendall Grant Clark writes about the very mottled history of RDF, and where it might be going in the future. This draws on recent discussions on the XML-dev mailing list, sparked an earlier RDF article.

I finished reading this article with my current views reinforced: perhaps it could be useful, but it is still too ugly for me to spend time learning it ...

Posted by jamesr at 01:29 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Selling structured writing to authors

Mark Baker writes an excellent article about implementing structured authoring, particularly focusing on XML-based tools. Mark has been around for a long time, and as a fellow Omnimark developer, I've a lot of respect for where he is coming from. To quote:

The truth is, writers will use any tool that makes their task easier. If the task is to create a formatted document for print, then a WYSIWYG word processor is a task- appropriate tool. But if you are contributing a structured information object to a single-sourcing system, a forms- based interface combined with the use of XML or SGML markup certainly becomes the right tool. I have hired writers with a really strong prejudice in favor of Frame Maker. However, when they used our custom in-house single sourcing system they were converted very quickly -- not because our system was inherently superior to Frame in any general sense -- but because it was highly specific to the task they had to perform and thus it made their lives easier.

This directly matches my experiences. I've written a similar custom-developed authoring tool, and within a day of using it, most tech writers rave about it. Sure, it's not pretty, but it is perfectly tailored for the task at hand...

In summary, this article presents the argument that authors will only use an environment if it benefits them, which is fair enough. Take the time to spell out the benefits, and the project will be a success.

Posted by jamesr at 08:22 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, XML

Web Ontology Language (OWL)

Robin Cover has written a news article on the release of the Web Ontology Language (OWL) Guide, which "is intended to provide a language that can be used to describe the classes and relations between them that are inherent in Web documents and applications". To quote from the Working Draft:

To support [intelligent computation in Web applications], it is necessary to go beyond keywords and specify the meaning of the resources described on the web. This additional layer of interpretation captures the semantics of the data.

OWL is a language for defining Web ontologies and their associated knowledge bases. Ontology is a term borrowed from philosophy that refers to the science of describing the kinds of entities in the world and how they are related. In OWL, an ontology is a set of definitions of classes and properties, and constraints on the way those classes and properties can be employed. An OWL ontology may include the following elements:

• taxonomic relations between classes
• datatype properties, descriptions of attributes of elements of classes
• object properties, descriptions of relations between elements of classes

This is part of the whole "semantic web" thing, which I'm not a fan of. And in case you were wondering, I have no idea how this relates to other specifications such as topic maps, RDF, the various taxonomy languages, and the like... it's all very confusing.

Posted by jamesr at 08:59 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

An Introduction to XML for Knowledge Managers

Well, I am pleased to announce that Standards Australia has released my new supplement:

An Introduction to XML for Knowledge Managers

I've written this supplement to help implementers to get a handle on how XML can assist in their knowledge management projects. It also provides a strategic overview of how the different XML technologies relate to each other.

The supplement is non-technical, provides a step-by-step introduction to key XML concepts, and will appeal to a wide audience.

Posted by jamesr at 04:43 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management, XML

NewsML 1.1 released

Robin Cover has summarised the release of NewsML 1.1. From the functional specification:

NewsML provides a framework for the interchange and management of news: NewsML is primarily intended as a format for the interchange of news. However, it may also be used as a format for news storage and as a support for the creation, editing, management and publication of news in a networked computing environment.

NewsML is based on XML: A NewsML document is an XML document, which must be valid with respect to the NewsML Document Type Definition (DTD) that appears in Appendix 1 of the specification. Like all XML documents, NewsML documents are logical rather than physical objects. They may be built up of the contents of multiple physical files through the use of entity references as described in the XML specification, or by the use of pointers within the NewsML document.

NewsML is media-neutral: NewsML makes no assumption about the media type, format or encoding of news objects. NewsML documents can contain text, video, audio, graphics, photos, or other media and combinations of media yet to be invented.

To be completely frank, I'm not sure how NewsML fits compares to RSS, and whether the two are competing or complementary. I'll have to look into this.

Posted by jamesr at 10:56 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Ensuring valid RSS

Invalid XML in RSS feeds cause a lot of problems (this is something that I've written about before). Mark Pilgrim and Sam Ruby have now done the world a huge service by releasing a free RSS validator.

This is a thing of beauty, and I can only hope that everyone will take the time to check their feeds with this. You can read the original announcement here.

(I'm a bit embarassed to say that my feed doesn't fully validate. While it is valid XML, it a couple of fields don't match the RSS specification. Needless to say, I'm going to get this fixed...)

Posted by jamesr at 10:48 AM | Permalink
Categories: Weblogs, XML

XML 1.1 on the way

A report on ZDNet discusses the news that World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released XML 1.1 as a candidate recommendation. This focuses on revising the support for Unicode, and this has generated a lot of ire in the past. To quote:

The revision of XML comes with a trio of changes to the specification's treatment of Unicode, an increasingly global standard for representing characters in computerised text.

Among the Unicode revisions is a change that will specifically benefit users of IBM's mainframe systems -- and that has inspired complaints that IBM is exercising more than its fair share of influence on the XML working group.

I fully expect this new version to be ignored for a long time to come. After all, full support for XML 1.0 is still far from universal...

Posted by jamesr at 12:52 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

A historical look at RSS

Mark Pilgrim has written a very informative blog entry on the history of RSS, and how such a messy format has become so popular. To quote:

The problem with that list of RSS deficiencies is that it is also a list of necessities—RSS has flourished in a way that no other syndication format has, not despite many of these qualities but because of them. The very weaknesses that make RSS so infuriating to serious practitioners also make it possible in the first place.

This is very interesting from a purely XML perspective, as it calls into question how XML standards are developed and used. (See Mark's comments on RDF, for example.)

Posted by jamesr at 06:15 PM | Permalink
Categories: Weblogs, XML

Facet language released

The eXchangable Faceted Metadata Language (XFML) has just been released in final "1.0" form, and is ready to use. To quote:

Today the XFML Core (aka XFML version 1.0) spec is officially published at http://purl.oclc.org/NET/xfml/core/. XFML Core is an XML language for sharing hierarchical faceted metadata and indexing efforts. XFML Core is a stable and frozen spec, and is permanently licensed to the public. XFML won’t solve all your metadata problems – it is focused on sharing indexing efforts with faceted metadata.

For full information, visit xfml.org.

This is an interesting development, but the real test is where it goes from here. There is already support for the major weblogging systems, which is a good start, but it must grow a lot more than that to reach critical mass. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Posted by jamesr at 10:29 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

XML for integration

Carolyn A. April and Heather Harreld have written about the growing field of information aggregation, which involves using XML to tie to together existing applications to form a seamless interface:

EII (enterprise information integration) technology is middleware that sits on top of applications and other systems. It provides transactional access to data from such disparate sources as packaged applications, e-mail, or content management servers, and delivers it in standard XML format to external targets.

(This use of XML is one of the areas highlighted in my upcoming Introduction to XML for Knowledge Managers, now due out in (hopefully) less than a fortnight.)

Posted by jamesr at 04:29 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

XML tops 160% growth

There is a report today, which discusses the growth of the XML market. To quote:

Over the past year alone the market for XML servers has delivered an incredible performance. Between 2001 and 2002 XML servers have grown by 168% which, IDC firmly believes, will in turn create a market worth some $3.5 billion by 2006. And that's probably on the conservative side of estimates too.

Frankly, I have no idea what they are talking about. What is the "XML market" in the first place, and what is an "XML server"? With most XML being quietly integrated into solutions "under the hood", it is hard to see how this can be measured, or even whether it meaningful to do so.

Still, I guess you can't go past a good bit of hype...

Posted by jamesr at 10:38 AM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Another intro to topic maps

Lars Marius Garshol writes an introduction to XML topic maps. Topic maps are incredibly powerful but very abstract, so I don't think you can have too many introductions.

While this intro does outline the core concepts, it somehow left me wanting more. As in other times when I have read topic map articles, I think: yep, I understand that, it's great, but what do I do with it in practice?. This article is no exeption.

Posted by jamesr at 04:46 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

More on XForms

Micah Dubinko writes an introduction to XForms. This is a potentially very interesting technology, as we all use a lot of online forms in a given year.

Of course, it is very early days yet. There is no browser support, and the spec leaves it up to the implementers to work out how to present things. Which can't be a good thing for consistency, if the past is anything to go by.

(Side note: it was somewhat irritating to discover that the XML.com site no longer works in Opera, and that they have included even more intrusive ads for O'Reilly products actually within the article itself. So much for O'Reilly being a supporter of open source and web standards...)

Posted by jamesr at 04:20 PM | Permalink
Categories: XML

Introduction to RSS

Mark Nottingham has written an excellent introduction to RSS titled RSS Tutorial for Content Publishers and Webmasters. RSS is, if you were wondering, the syndication method that can be used to keep track of recent news, or weblog updates.

To say that RSS is tremendously important is understating the case. It supports an amazingly large and diverse peer-group that spreads news and opinion very efficiently across the globe. RSS also has many interesting implications in how corporate KM and CM solutions should be built.

Of course, like all good things, it started simple and became more complex. Particularly when politics became involved. This article also helps to clarify where the different versions of RSS are at, and how they relate...

[Thanks to Simon Willison's Weblog.]

Posted by jamesr at 06:59 PM | Permalink
Categories: Weblogs, XML