CoverPages is a decent site concerning markup technologies such as XML, SGML, and XSLT. I am posting it because I found the news section interesting. When I last checked the site, the news was updated as recently as February 6th. If you would like to check it out, go to:
http://www.textuality.com/xml/faq.html
This is an ugly site, but it has good content. This page will answer simple questions students have about XML. Terms like "well-formed" and "valid" are discussed on this page along with how HTML, XML, and SGML differ.
TopXML offers comprehensive XML solutions for your advanced XML application development needs. The site is complete with tutorials, quizzes, code, tools, training, discussions, and articles.
Another VXML article, this time from webreview.com.
http://www.webreview.com/2001/02_09/developers/index01.shtml
This one gets more into the code writing of VXML, and shows examples of how some applications could be written using psuedo code.
http://www.rpbourret.com/xml/XMLDatabaseProds.htm
This is a link to a list of XML Databases of all sorts. Ronald Bourret, the author of this site, seems to be quite an XML expert and has quite a few papers describing many different aspects of XML and how it relates to databases.
I have personally used eXist; its a free, open source, native XML database, and I can say its pretty cool to be able to throw an entire XML document in a database and then query it, parse it, etc and not have to do any 'real' work to get the data in and out.
-Josh
http://webreference.com/xml/column33/index.html
VoiceXML was designed to bring structure to audio-based systems, such as a teleprompt system, to allow users to do much more than go through a standard voice menu.
There's some interesting uses for such a technology. Not only would it be useful for ATM/bank transactions, but it could also be used to compose email over the phone, listen to your email, receive directions while in the car, or even browse a "voice web site" with VoiceXML.
It's an easy read, only 4 pages, but it gives you a little background on the technical side, as well as an overall explanation.
http://www-1.ibm.com/certify/certs/adcdxmlrt.shtml
IBM offers an XML certification that hopefully we should all be able to pass after we are done with this class =). I think it costs $150 and you can take it at the CESC on Scottsville Rd (1200-C).
On the page, they list the objectives, prerequisites and a sample test. Thought some people might be interested!
-Josh
http://java.sun.com/xml/jaxp/dist/1.1/docs/tutorial/index.html
This tutorial from sun is extremely helpful in showing you what features are already built into java to allow you to read and write standard XML files. I used this tutorial and it only took me about 30 minutes to have a working program that would read and write the schema I designed.
There is also a decent introduction to XML, but our books and other articles probably do a better job.
-Josh
Other excellent tutorials from w3schools.com that should help us at some time or other during this quarter:
The Apache XML Project (http://xml.apache.org/) is attempting to standardise the use of XML, and provide "commercial-quality standards-based XML solutions that are developed in an open and cooperative fashion" (this sounds very much like many other Apache projects). Some of the sub-projects include: SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) and Cocoon (XML-based web publishing in Java).
I took some time this weekend to download and install a trial version of XMLSpy. (You get a 30 day trial for free.) It seems to do a good job of helping to create among other things, DTD's, XML Schemas, and sample XML code. Usability is not the best, but functionally it seems fairly robust.
www.xmlspy.com
Bob
This article gives a good description of ways in which different database products are implementing XML in their databases. It brings up the point that since there are many different implementations, will there eventually be a standard way to do it?
http://archive.devx.com/xml/articles/dd_dbstandard/dbstandard-1.asp