What if every bit of data in every computer included instructions about its content that would allow any other computer to interact with it? Such interoperability could unleash amazing new automation ...

Tim Bray and his colleagues in the World Wide Web Consortium had a very specific mission when they set out to define a new standard seven years ago. They needed a new format for Internet-connected ...

Figure 3. Big XML files. Click on thumbnail to view full-sized image. Eight years since its inception, XML has already taken off as an open, semi-structured data format for storing data as well as ...

First up, a scope warning for this article. This is the first part of a two-part piece about XML. Here I focus on uses of XML in areas such as application configuration files, the exchange of ...

There is an ongoing controversy in the XML world about the use of a feature called namespaces. By default, every element in an XML document is assigned to the “empty” namespace, but the document’s ...

More than any previous technology, XML lets IT professionals tie their efforts to business results. Because XML is a self-descriptive protocol, IT professionals can use it to encapsulate, share, reuse ...