This blog will be a weekly exercise as part of my coursework where I will be blogging about experiences during this course. I will be updating the blog each week with a new post about what was covered during the lecture.
Introduction
This week was an introductory session where we saw what is Markup Language and where XML came from and some basic knowledge about XML. XML is a descendant of SGML which was the success of HTML.
Markup Language is a system used for annotating text that can be distinguished from the rest of the text. The term mark up evolved from marking up text usually handwritten annotations on the side in the margins. Markup men or copy markers were people who noted the typeface, style and size then it was passed on to other for typesetting by hand. This was commonly used by editors and publishers and document authors. Examples of typesetting are troff and LaTex.
SGML stands for Generalized Markup Language created in the 1960s. Both XML and HTML are derived from SGML. SGML was created for the idea of having tags which contain useful information about the document. This was invented by Charles F.Gldfard, Ed Mosher and Ray Lorie at the IBM in the 1970s. In the U.S military and government this achieved several tones of success. SGML's biggest application success was HTML.
XML evolved from markup language which stands for Extensible Markup Language which was developed by the world wide consortium. XML is know as Extensible as it allows the creation of tags. This was developed to simplify SGML ( Standard Generalized Markup Language). Nowadays XML is used for communicating data between applications.
Coursework
What is the first browser to read XML?
XML was first supported on Microsoft Internet Version 4.0 (IE4) after that it was supported on other Microsoft products such as Office XP and SQL Server 2000. A library containing code known as COM DLL was provided within IE 4.0. This DLL file was called msxml.dll. This allowed for creating and parsing of XML document, since then it has been improved and always added more support to other XML standards. MSXML.DLL stands for Microsoft XML. Apart from DOM parsing it also supports other standards like Xpath, XSLT, XML schemas and XML namespaces.
Coursework
What is the first browser to read XML?
XML was first supported on Microsoft Internet Version 4.0 (IE4) after that it was supported on other Microsoft products such as Office XP and SQL Server 2000. A library containing code known as COM DLL was provided within IE 4.0. This DLL file was called msxml.dll. This allowed for creating and parsing of XML document, since then it has been improved and always added more support to other XML standards. MSXML.DLL stands for Microsoft XML. Apart from DOM parsing it also supports other standards like Xpath, XSLT, XML schemas and XML namespaces.
What is the current status of CSS?
CSS which stands for Cascading Style Sheets are mainly used for enhancing websites with styles. The latest CSS version is CSS3. The major difference from CSS2 is that CSS3 introduced modules which allow specifications to be completed and approved faster as modules are completed in chunks. Another new function in CSS3 are selectors. These are already supported by a lot of browsers. The major improvment that can be noticed are the effects and layouts.
What can be done with CSS3
#newcss1{
height: 50px;
width:100px;
-moz-border-radius-bottomright: 40px;
border-bottom-right-radius: 40px;
background:#9804b8;
margin-bottom: 10px;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
#newcss2{
height: 100px;
width: 200px;
-moz-border-radius: 2em 5em 2em 5em;
border-radius: 2em 5em 2em 5em;
background:#003366;
margin-bottom: 10px;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
What is the current status of XSL?
XSL stands for Extensible Stylesheet Language used to render XML code. With XSL several other markup languages can be used like HTML for presentation of the data within the XML document. XSL helps in producing a readable version of XML data. If one understands XML then a stylesheet for that XML can be written. First a template can be made later this template can be filled with data coming from an XML file.
What are the relative merits of CSS and XSL?
As any other thing both CSS and XSL have their benefits. CSS main advantages are the following:
What are the implications of the concept of the document tree?
An XML document is formed in a tree like document, the first thing you need is the XML declaration then a root element <root>this describes the document. Following are the child elements which can contain subchild elements and ending the document with a closing root element </root>. Putting it all together it will something as below.
<root>
<child>
<subchild>.....</subchild>
</child>
CSS which stands for Cascading Style Sheets are mainly used for enhancing websites with styles. The latest CSS version is CSS3. The major difference from CSS2 is that CSS3 introduced modules which allow specifications to be completed and approved faster as modules are completed in chunks. Another new function in CSS3 are selectors. These are already supported by a lot of browsers. The major improvment that can be noticed are the effects and layouts.
What can be done with CSS3
#newcss1{
height: 50px;
width:100px;
-moz-border-radius-bottomright: 40px;
border-bottom-right-radius: 40px;
background:#9804b8;
margin-bottom: 10px;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
#newcss2{
height: 100px;
width: 200px;
-moz-border-radius: 2em 5em 2em 5em;
border-radius: 2em 5em 2em 5em;
background:#003366;
margin-bottom: 10px;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
 |
| Actual outcome of newcss1 |
 |
| Actual outcome of newcss2 |
What is the current status of XSL?
XSL stands for Extensible Stylesheet Language used to render XML code. With XSL several other markup languages can be used like HTML for presentation of the data within the XML document. XSL helps in producing a readable version of XML data. If one understands XML then a stylesheet for that XML can be written. First a template can be made later this template can be filled with data coming from an XML file.
<?xml version ="1.0"?>
<xsl:stylesheet version="1.0">
<xsl:template match=" ">
<html>
<body>
</body>
</html>
</xsl:template>
</xsl:stylesheet>
What are the relative merits of CSS and XSL?
As any other thing both CSS and XSL have their benefits. CSS main advantages are the following:
- Faster Loading of pages - Since their is less code pages will download faster. Since tables are replaced by divs and not required for CSS they will take up less space. It will load faster and users will be more comfortable.
- Maintenance - Doing maintenance like changing styles and layouts is easier as you only need to edit one place. With CSS you don't need to repeat certain code as these are specified only once for an element.
- Control - CSS helps the developer in gaining more control over his web site as styles are in a sepearate file and then, can be linked in. To edit the whole site you just edit one single file.
- Better search engine results - Since the code is cleaner, search engine bots do not have to separate the real content from junk code, therefore search engine crawlers will identify better the imoportant code.
- Media - CSS also helps in applying style sheets which can be use for media like PDA's and mobile devices
CSS has a lot of potential, the biggest advantage the CSS provides is flexibility which it gives to a web designer.
XSL benefits
XSL is used for data transformation by transferring its input into something very different. Filtering and sorting can be done to the result and complicated layouts and styles can be achieved.
What are the implications of the concept of the document tree?
An XML document is formed in a tree like document, the first thing you need is the XML declaration then a root element <root>this describes the document. Following are the child elements which can contain subchild elements and ending the document with a closing root element </root>. Putting it all together it will something as below.
<root>
<child>
<subchild>.....</subchild>
</child>
</root>
Links:
http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/xml/xmlnut/ch01_04.htm
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_tree.asp
http://webdesign.about.com/cs/xslinformation/a/aaintrotoxsl.htm
http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/advantages-of-css-cascading-style-sheet/
Links:
http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/xml/xmlnut/ch01_04.htm
http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_tree.asp
http://webdesign.about.com/cs/xslinformation/a/aaintrotoxsl.htm
http://www.quality-web-programming.com/blog/advantages-of-css-cascading-style-sheet/
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