The Extensible Markup Language, XML

One of the most fundamental principals to any successful business is organization. Professionals who are able to find information quickly and easily are generally speaking, more productive. Organization, or the concept of it, is the backbone of the computer programming language XML (Extensible Markup Language). XML is designed to make any type of data easily accessible to a wide range of people. In principal, XML forces data to be organized in a way that allows easy computer interpretation, but also easy human interpretation. XML has evolved as one of the most widely used technologies for database manipulation.

XML easily reads stems from the language’s structure. Just like HTML, XML is a markup language meaning that tags are used to identify information and text. Instead of using predefined tags as with HTML, XML allows programmers to use their own tags to describe information. Programmers choose XML to utilizes tags that anyone can understand instead of having some tags that only a programmer can understand so anybody can easily ready and interpret the contents of an XML document anywhere, on just about any system. In addition, XML is also non-proprietary and backed by an international standard, making the language and structure universal.

Beyond XML’s impressive structure, the language is highly utilized by web developers when constructing Sitemaps. A sitemap is a means of informing search engines that certain URLs on a website are available for crawling. Basically, an XML file lists certain URLs for a site. These pages can then be indexed for later searches by web browsers, essentially allowing web surfers to find individual pages on a website.

XML’s extensive functionality and logical structure enable XML as a solid choice in many environments where a database is utilized. XML has the ability to organize data in a structured and logical way, so that just about anyone can interpret the contents of an XML file. In addition to be easily understood, XML is also very portable and universal in structure. All of these features, in combination with XML’s ability to set up structured sitemaps, set XML as one of the leading technologies in database organization and manipulation.



- By Tim Cherry of Atak Interactive, Inc.