[thelist] xml is good for...?

Luther, Ron Ron.Luther at hp.com
Wed Oct 26 14:14:57 CDT 2005


Tim Kuhn suggested:


>>http://creative.gettyimages.com/source/home/home.aspx

>>Click on a language and the whole site, text and images are local that

>>language. It is all done with xml. 


Hi Tim,


Very nice!  And I've long admired the Getty collection of images.  ;-)

However, at the end of the day, that link is a retail website.  I'm
confident that, (with a little help from my evolt buddies naturally), I
could design a comparable site with identical functionality that uses an
Oracle, SQL Server, or MySQL backend.

IIRC there have been at least a couple of 'how to' threads here at evolt
concerning the backend design of multi-language sites over the past year
or so.  All without any need to use XML.  This looks like one of those
to me.

Where does the XML provide added value?  Where is the 'coolness' here
that is specific to XML?  That's what I guess I'm not getting.


RonL.

[Don't get me wrong.  I do see value to XML ... Suppose you were selling
data and had a well-defined data exchange format. Suppose further that
one of your data elements was the 2 character ISO country code
abbreviation.  Now you're trying to sign a new customer - a very big
customer - a lucrative deal.  That customer won't sign unless you
outbound the 3 character ISO country code abbreviation.  If your
outbound is XML it's no sweat, you add in the new data element and off
you go to the bank.  In any other format you'd have to alert your
existing customers to the change in the record field layout, provide
test files, feedback forums, establish a cutover to new format timeline,
project status reviews for management, yadda, yadda, yadda.  XML is
really pretty sweet for stuff like this.]




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